A report, published in Stroke, showed that small improvements in cardiovascular risk factors reduce the chances a person will suffer a stroke. The report is part of an ongoing national study called Reasons for Geographic and Racial Differences in Stroke (REGARDS) which is funded by NIH's National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke.
Stroke is a leading cause of death and disability in the United States. Strokes are caused by abnormal changes in blood flow in the brain or the bursting of brain blood vessels. Previous studies suggest that strokes can be prevented by reducing risk factors associated with cardiovascular disease. In 2010, the American Heart Association/American Stroke Association defined seven critical risk factors as: elevated blood pressure, cholesterol, and blood glucose, obesity, current smoking, physical inactivity, and poor diet and then used them to create a cardiovascular health score called Life's Simple 7 (LS7). Each factor was scored as 0 (poor compliance), 1 (intermediate compliance), or 2 (ideal compliance), with resulting overall total scores grouped into three categories such that a score of 0-4 indicates poor cardiovascular health, 5-9 average health, and 10-14 represents optimal health.
For this study, researchers measured the relationship between these scores and the occurrence of stroke in over 22,000 subjects in the REGARDS study enrolled between 2003 to 2007. The results showed that an increase in even one point on the overall LS7 scorecard significantly reduced the chances a subject would have a stroke within 5 years. These increases affected white and black subjects equally.
Article:
Kulshreshtha et al. "Life's Simple 7 and Risk of Incident of Stroke: Reasons for Geographic and Racial Differences in Stroke Study,"
Stroke, June 6, 2013. DOI: 10.1161/STROKEHA.111.000352
Who:
Walter Koroshetz, M.D., Deputy Director, NINDS, and Claudia Moy, Ph.D., Program Director, NINDS Office of Clinical Research are available to discuss this research.
This study was supported by grants from NINDS (NS041588) and NHLBI (HL077506)
For more information about stroke, please visit:
http://www.ninds.nih.gov/disorders/stroke/stroke.htm
NINDS is the nation's leading funder of research on the brain and nervous system. The NINDS mission is to reduce the burden of neurological disease – a burden borne by every age group, by every segment of society, by people all over the world.
About the National Institutes of Health (NIH):
NIH, the nation's medical research agency, includes 27 Institutes and Centers and is a component of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. NIH is the primary federal agency conducting and supporting basic, clinical, and translational medical research, and is investigating the causes, treatments, and cures for both common and rare diseases. For more information about NIH and its programs, visit http://www.nih.gov.