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A new study suggests that the risk of stroke in people with high blood pressure and diabetes may decrease as people age.
According to the study, high blood pressure and diabetes are two important risk factors for stroke that can be managed with medication, lowering a person’s risk of having a stroke.
“Our findings show that their association with stroke risk may be substantially less at older ages, yet other risk factors do not change with age. These differences in risk factors imply that determining whether a person is at high risk for stroke may differ depending on their age,” said study author George Howard, DrPH, of the University of Alabama in the US.
The researchers divided the participants into three age groups while conducting the study.
Participants in the younger group ranged in age from 45 to 69, in the middle group from late 60s to 70s, and in the older group from 74 and up.
Researchers discovered that people with diabetes in their younger age groups were roughly twice as likely to have a stroke as people of similar age who did not have diabetes, whereas people with diabetes in their older age groups had a roughly 30% higher risk of having a stroke than people of similar older age who did not have diabetes.
Furthermore, they discovered that people with high blood pressure in their younger age group had an 80% increased risk of having a stroke compared to people of similar age who did not have high blood pressure, whereas that risk decreased to 50% for people with high blood pressure in their older age group compared to people of similar age who did not have high blood pressure.
Furthermore, when race was examined as a risk factor, researchers discovered that Black participants in the younger age group had a higher stroke risk than white participants in that group.
As people aged, the racial divide shrank. Researchers discovered no age-related change in risk factors for stroke, such as smoking and atrial fibrillatio, and left ventricular hypertrophy.
Howard also pointed out that even if the impact of risk factors decreases with age, the total number of people having strokes at older ages may still be higher because overall stroke risk rises with age.
Source:IANS
