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An estimated 30% of strokes in women occur in those younger than 65. The objective of this study was to assess sex differences in the prevalence of stroke in midlife (35–64 years) and to identify possible determinants of these differences. Researchers analyzed data from 17,061 participants in the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) from 1999 through 2004.
Women 45 to 54 years old were more than twice as likely as men in the same age group to have had a stroke. The only independent predictors of stroke in these women were coronary artery disease and waist circumference, whereas history of cigarette smoking was the only independent predictor in men of the same age. Looking across each successive decade, women had dramatic…