tenda Health

Recent evidence suggests that young women (18–45 years) may be at higher risk of ischemic strokes than men of the same age. Researchers looked at the variations in stroke incidence between men and women in distinct young adult age groups.

They looked at studies published and indexed on PubMed, one of the world’s largest online research databases, operated by the National Library of Medicine at the National Institutes of Health, between January 2008 and July 2021. They comprised population-based research focusing on young adults 45 years and younger. Ischemic strokes, hemorrhagic strokes (a bleed that occurs when a weakened blood vessel ruptures), TIA, or transient ischemic attack, also known as a mini-stroke (caused by a serious, temporary clot), and cryptogenic strokes (for which no known cause is identified) were all included in the studies.

The claim that young women are disproportionately at risk of ischemic stroke deviates significantly from current scientific thinking and could have substantial ramifications for the causation of ischemic strokes in young people. Endogenous estrogen has been shown to enhance vasodilation and decrease blood vessel response to atherosclerosis progression. As a result, premenopausal women had a lower prevalence of atherosclerotic disease, while postmenopausal women have a higher prevalence. This phenomenon is considered to cause greater sex disparities in myocardial infarction incidence among persons under 45 years old, with young men having more than double the incidence of young women. 

We previously discovered that men aged 25 to 34 years had a 1.6 times higher rate of index acute myocardial infarction, whereas women in this age group had a 1.4 times higher rate of index ischemic stroke. Ischemic strokes are a common complication of atherosclerosis, and they share the same cardiovascular risk factors as ischemic heart disease. As a result, the discovery of a greater rate of ischemic stroke in premenopausal women compared to men of the same age is a departure from our previous assumptions. This data shows that nonatherosclerotic risk factors (such as maternal strokes, hormonal contraception, and migraine headaches) may be more substantial, yet little known, risk factors for ischemic stroke in young women.