Maternal stroke history linked to women's heart attack risk
Women whose mothers suffered a stroke could be at risk of heart attack as well as stroke, according to new research on family history and heart disease.
Authors of the Oxford Vascular Study say family history of stroke could be as useful as family history of heart attack in predicting a woman’s heart attack risk.
The study of more than 2,200 heart patients showed women were more likely to have mothers who suffered a stroke than fathers who did.
Amitava Banerjee, from the Oxford University Stroke Prevention Research Unit, said: “Understanding such gender-specific risk factors is important because women, despite their lower odds of suffering a heart attack, are more likely than men to die from one.”
Published in an American Heart Association journal, the study found 24 per cent of the heart attack and angina patients, and roughly the same number of stroke patients, had at least one first-degree relative with a history of stroke.
Researchers say this indicates stroke history is as important to a person’s risk of heart attack as to their risk of stroke.
“Tools to gauge risk in women are inadequate. There is clearly room for improvement in predicting heart attack risk in women,” Banerjee added.
