Bulging Bellies’ Increases Stroke Chances in Middle-aged Women: Study

Fast catching up with men, middle-aged American women with growing bellies have tripled their risk of stroke in recent years, a report by the American Stroke Association discloses.

According to the stats of the National Health and Nutrition Surveys – 1999 to 2004, nearly 2 percent of women aged between 35 and 54 reported suffering a stroke, as compared to 0.6 percent in the previous survey of -1988 to 1994. However, the stroke risk remained same at about 1 percent in middle-aged men.

Further in-depth comparison between the results of two surveys revealed that women’s waistline in the later study increased by nearly 2 inches than women in the earlier study. Also, the average body-mass index, a measure of obesity, rose from 27.11 in the earlier study to 28.67 in the later study.

Exposing alarming situation, the section of women with abdominal obesity rose from 47 percent in the earlier survey to 59 percent in the recent one.

"Abdominal obesity is a known predictor of stroke in women and may be a key factor in the midlife stroke surge in women," Amytis Towfighi, a neurology specialist who led the study at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles noted.

The comparisons also reported an increase in the percentage of women on medications to lower blood pressure from 8.9 in the earlier study to 14.8 in the recent one. Another 4 percent of women in the later study were taking medication to lower cholesterol, compared to 1.4 percent in the earlier study, researchers revealed.

"The relationship makes sense. People have shown that obesity does make a big difference in increasing the risk of stroke and cardiovascular disease," Daniel T. Lackland, a professor of epidemiology at the University of South Carolina, and a spokesman for the American Stroke Association said.

Reinforcing the standing advice to avoid obesity, along with other stroke factors, Lackland noted, "By losing weight, you lose abdominal circumference, you reduce the risk of diabetes and lipid abnormalities, all of which are known risk factors for cardiovascular disease."