Stroke Risk May Be Higher for Chinese People Than Whites

And they experience first strokes at younger ages, large study found

By Robert Preidt

Monday, July 15, 2013

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MONDAY, July 15 (HealthDay News) -- Chinese people may have a higher risk for stroke than whites, according to a new study.
Researchers reviewed studies since 1990 that included nearly 4,000 first strokes in more than 404,000 Chinese people in China and Taiwan, and 10 studies that looked at more than 4,500 strokes in nearly 1.9 million white people.
The analysis of the data showed that the risk of stroke ranged from 205 to 584 per 100,000 Chinese people aged 45 to 74, compared with 170 to 335 per 100,000 whites of the same age.
The researchers also found that the risk of a type of bleeding stroke called an intracerebral hemorrhage was higher among Chinese (33 percent of all strokes) than among whites (12 percent of all strokes).
Chinese people had a lower average age of first stroke (66 to 70) than whites (72 to 76), according to the study published July 16 in the journal Neurology.
"While stroke is the second most-common cause of death worldwide, in China it is the leading cause of death and adult disability," study author Dr. Chung-Fen Tsai, at the University of Edinburgh, in Scotland, said in a journal news release.
"The global impact of stroke in the decades ahead is predicted to be greatest in middle income countries, including China. It is important to gain a better understanding of how stroke affects different populations as we try to reduce the burden of the disease worldwide," he added.

SOURCE: Neurology, news release, July 15, 2013

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