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Strokes are on the rise—and these are the reasons why

Growing risk factors range from climbing rates of obesity to hotter temperatures from climate change, but the single biggest risk factor is the same across every region in the world: high blood pressure, responsible for a little over half of all strokes, the Lancet study found. Another study published last month in JAMA Network Open revealed that more than half of all Americans with high blood pressure don’t even know they have hypertension—including 93 percent of those aged 18 to 44. Fortunately, of all the risk factors for stroke, hypertension is also one of the easiest to monitor and change.

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Featured

 New Stroke Recommendations Call Out Risks Unique to Women

New guidelines for preventing strokes spell out for the first time the risks faced by women, noting that pre-term births and conditions like endometriosis and early menopause can raise the risk. “Prior guidelines tended to be sex-agnostic,” said Dr. Brian Snelling, director of the stroke program at Baptist Health South Florida’s Marcus Neuroscience Institute, who was not involved in writing the guidelines. “Now we have more data about sex-specific subgroups, so you’re able to more appropriately screen those patients.”

 Stroke Risk Assessment

Curious about your own risk for stroke? This scorecard from the American Stroke Association® can help determine your risk. It’s important to note, some stroke risk factors such as age, family history, race, gender and prior stroke cannot be changed.

Articles of Interest

Fish oil may increase risk of heart conditions and stroke, study finds

But supplements could reduce likelihood of heart attack for people who already have cardiovascular disease.

For Young Women, What's Your Stroke Risk?

In younger women, the risk factors for stroke are obesity, high blood pressure (hypertension), type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular disease. An older study, published in 1997 in the Journal of the American Medical Association, found that women who are obese or who have gained more than 44 pounds since they were 18 years old are about 2-1/2 times more likely to have an ischemic stroke than lean women who have not gained a lot of weight. Smoking or using oral contraceptives also increases the risk for stroke.

Stroke in Women: A Review Focused on Epidemiology, Risk Factors, and Outcomes

Several risk factors have a higher association with stroke in women than in men, and women-specific risk factors that men do not have should be considered.

A Common Test to Screen for Stroke Risk Is Under Review

Health panel takes a new look at carotid-artery ultrasounds, which can produce false positive results.

Are You at Risk for Stroke?

Anyone can have a stroke, but your chances increase if you have certain risk factors. That’s why the best way to protect yourself or your loved ones from a stroke is to know the risks and how to manage them. You can make changes to your lifestyle to lower your risk of stroke by asking yourself the following questions...

Artificial Sweetener Tied to Risk of Heart Attack and Stroke, Study Finds

Erythritol was not proven to cause these health problems, but some experts recommend limiting intake.

Black people’s risk factors for stroke ‘rising faster than for white people’

Stroke risk factors including high blood pressure and diabetes are rising faster among people from Black African and Caribbean backgrounds compared with their white counterparts, according to analysis. Researchers at King’s College London analysed data from more than 8,500 adults over a 30-year period from the South London Stroke Register, one of the longest-running population-based stroke registers in the world.

Controlling Stroke Risk Factors

These risk factors include high blood pressure, tobacco use, heavy alcohol consumption, obesity, high cholesterol, high blood sugar levels and lack of physical activity. Atrial fibrillation and sleep apnea also can be managed.

Emerging Stroke Risk Factors: A Focus on Infectious and Environmental Determinants

Air pollution is a known risk factor for cardiovascular disease. However, its association with the cerebrovascular disease including both ischemic and hemorrhagic stroke is under-studied and under-reported. Air pollution is an emerging risk factor and reportedly accounts for 14% of all stroke-associated mortality.

From contraception to menopause: why women face a higher risk of stroke

Stroke risk in women is shaped by biology and hormones throughout the reproductive years. One important set of risk factors involves high blood pressure during pregnancy. These include conditions such as gestational hypertension and preeclampsia.

Health Conditions That Increase Stroke Risk Rise Across All Ages, Races

For years, doctors have been warning us that high cholesterol, cigarette smoking, illegal drug use and diabetes increase our chances of having a potentially fatal stroke. And yet, most of the stroke patients showing up at hospitals from 2004 to 2014 had one or more of these risk factors. And the numbers of people at risk in this way tended to grow among all age groups and ethnicities in that time period.

Lifestyle risk factors

Small, healthy changes in your daily routine can decrease your risk for another stroke. Making changes is always challenging.

Microplastics May Be Clogging Your Arteries and Increasing Your Risk of Stroke By Ashley Fike May 2, 2025, 10:09am

In case you needed another reason to be unsettled by the modern world, researchers just found that stroke victims have arteries clogged not just with fat and cholesterol, but also with microplastics.

Microscopic plastics could raise risk of stroke and heart attack, study says

Scientists link tiny particles in blood vessels with substantially higher risk of death.

People with sleep problems at greater risk of stroke, study suggests

Scientists in the US have found people with one or more self-reported symptoms of insomnia have a 16% increased risk of developing the serious medical condition, compared with those without symptoms. They said the link was stronger in participants under 50, where those with five to eight symptoms had nearly four times the risk of having a stroke. The team said its findings, published in the journal Neurology, suggested that improving sleep quality through therapies could help reduce this risk.

Risk Factors for Stroke

The older you are, the more likely you are to have a stroke. The chance of having a stroke about doubles every 10 years after age 55. Although stroke is common among older adults, many people younger than 65 years also have strokes.

Risk Factors Under Your Control

Stroke is dangerous and deadly, but you can control and treat several of its risk factors.

Risk of stroke is up worldwide. What can be done about it?

While age remains the most critical risk factor for stroke, diet also can play a significant role. “The incidence of obesity is increasing around the world, and the quality of our diets is decreasing,” says Dana Hunnes, PhD(Link is external), adjunct assistant professor of community health sciences at the UCLA Fielding School of Public Health and a clinical dietitian at Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center. She attributes the rise in stroke risks globally to the same factors that contribute to the global obesity crisis. “People are eating more processed foods. This is a global phenomenon,” Dr. Hunnes said.

Sleep apnoea greatly increases risk of stroke, US scientists find

Stanford study shows that people with the common sleep disorder are also five times more likely to develop atrial fibrillation.

Stroke and Women: Understanding Why the Risk is Higher

Women have a higher risk of stroke than men, particularly young women and Black women. Two neurologists explain why, and ways to reduce the risk.

Stroke Risk Factors

Stroke is dangerous and deadly — the No. 5 killer and a leading cause of adult disability in America. But you can control and treat several risk factors for stroke.

Stroke Risk Factors, Genetics, and Prevention

Unlike myocardial infarction, which is almost always due to large vessel atherosclerotic disease affecting the coronary arteries, identification of risk factors for stroke is complicated by the fact that strokes come in many varieties. Risk factors for hemorrhagic and ischemic stroke are similar, but there are some notable differences; there are also differences in risk factors among the etiologic categories of ischemic stroke. Hypertension is a particularly important risk factor for hemorrhagic stroke, though it contributes to atherosclerotic disease that can lead to ischemic stroke as well. Hyperlipidemia, on the other hand, is a particularly important risk factor for strokes due to atherosclerosis of extracranial and intracranial blood vessels,10 just as it is a risk factor for coronary atherosclerosis. Atrial fibrillation is a risk factor for cardioembolic stroke.

Study: Type A Personality Doubles Risk of Having a Stroke

Stress drastically increases likelihood of strokes, as measured through various stress-related behaviors and manifestations in a new study.

The silent killer increases your risk of stroke and dementia. Here's how to control it

By age 40, more than half of Americans have high blood pressure, but many are unaware of it. Hypertension has long been known as the silent killer. When it's left untreated it can be deadly. And it's considered a silent threat since most people have no symptoms. You can't feel the pressure in your blood vessels increasing.

This ‘Healthy’ Ingredient You’re Probably Eating Might Give You a Stroke

If you’ve had a protein bar that wasn’t inedible, it’s probably because of erythritol. It’s just too bad that it might give you a stroke.

Three things every woman should know about stroke risk

The most common stroke risk factors are high blood pressure and diabetes. But risk levels and severity differ by sex, Madsen said. In a 2019 study of over 26,000 participants, Madsen and other researchers found that risk of stroke per each level of hypertension was higher in women. Compared to men with high blood pressure, women with high blood pressure were even more likely to have a severe stroke.

We Have Some Bad News About Your Diet Soda Habit

If you made a New Year’s resolution to give up soda and didn’t stick to it, now might be the time to pick that promise back up again: A new study out of Boston University just published in the journal Stroke found that people who drank diet soda daily were three times more likely to have a stroke or dementia than those who drank it weekly or less often.

Women are at greater risk of stroke, the more miscarriages or stillbirths they’ve had

Many women are unaware their experiences during pregnancy can be an early marker of later health dangers. Our findings show their doctors should be alert to their increased risk. It’s possible infertility, miscarriage, and stillbirth could increase stroke risk because of other health issues. These could include endocrine disorders (low oestrogen or insulin resistance), inflammation, problems with endothelial cells that assist in blood flow, psychological disorders, unhealthy behaviours (such as smoking) or obesity.

Women May Face Higher Risk of Stroke Following Infertility Treatment

Women who became pregnant after infertility treatment were more likely to have a stroke in the year following the birth when compared with women who conceived naturally, scientists reported on Wednesday in the largest study of its kind. Stroke risk was elevated in the first 30 days after delivery among the women who had undergone treatments, and the odds continued to rise through the year after childbirth. But the absolute numbers remained very low, the researchers emphasized: just 37 stroke hospitalizations for every 100,000 women who underwent treatment.

Resources

14 Stroke Risk Factors Every Young Woman Needs to Know

According to Dr. Brockington and ASA data, these are five common risk factors for women: —Pregnancy-related diabetes —Preeclampsia —A family or personal history of spontaneous miscarriages —The use of birth control pills —Hormone replacement therapy. Other common risk factors for both men and women include: —Hypertension —Irregular heartbeat —Diabetes —Depression —Obesity —Smoking —Excessive alcohol use —Family history of stroke —Migraines.

7 Stroke Risk Factors All Women Need to Be Aware Of

If you’re a healthy, young, active woman who doesn’t smoke, chances are you probably haven’t given a whole lot of thought to whether or not you’re at risk of a stroke. Strokes are more common in older people, smokers, and people who are obese and/or have a metabolic syndrome. So if you’re none of these things, it’s understandable not to be constantly worried about the danger of strokes. But that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t think about it, ever, at all. You should. And here’s why.

Eight ways to reduce your stroke risk – no matter what age you are

Stroke risk factors that tend to be more common among older people – such as high blood pressure (hypertension), high cholesterol, obesity, diabetes, smoking, physical inactivity and poor diet – are increasingly found in younger people. Other lifestyle risks include heavy alcohol consumption or binge drinking and recreational drugs such as amphetamines, cocaine and heroin.

Seven ways to minimise the risk of having a stroke

Knowing the signs and seeking early treatment can lessen damage caused by a stroke, or prevent them altogether. Here are steps you can take, from monitoring your blood pressure to keeping cholesterol in check