Why Young People Have Strokes: Unraveling the Mystery July 5, 2000 -- Young people don't typically have strokes, so when they do, it can be particularly frightening. We understand that older people have strokes more often than young people because the stroke risk factors, such as narrowing of the arteries, increase with age. But researchers are still trying to find out how to decrease the risk of stroke in people under 45 -- a group that doesn't typically have the risk factors of older people.

In a recent study, doctors found that stroke patients and healthy patients had similar levels of total cholesterol, but pinpointed low levels of the 'good' cholesterol, HDL, in stroke patients. HDL is believed to lower stroke risk.

The results suggest that having your HDL cholesterol measured may be a good indicator of whether you're at risk for a stroke prematurely.

High cholesterol levels that lead to artery narrowing have often been associated with an increased stroke risk. However, in this study, which was published in a recent issue of the Journal of Neurology, Neurosurgery and Psychiatry, young stroke patients were different from the typical older stroke patient because they showed no signs of narrowing of their brain arteries. This suggested that another factor was the increasing the risk.

The study involved 94 stroke patients under 45. Doctors examined the patients, questioned them about their medical histories, and studied their brain arteries with imaging techniques. They also asked whether the patients had other known risk factors for stroke, such as cigarette smoking, high blood pressure, high bloodcholesterol levels, diabetes, or oral contraceptive use. Blood samples were taken and their cholesterol levels were measured. The findings were compared to a group of 111 healthy subjects.

Unlike the typical older stroke patient, only a few showed any signs of atherosclerosis, which is fatty deposits on the walls of blood vessels that narrow them, according to J.F. Albucher and colleagues at the Purpan Hospital in Toulouse, France. So having "clean" blood vessels is no guarantee that a stroke won't develop.

When the researchers measured levels of fat in the blood, they found that only a low level of HDL cholesterol was strongly associated with stroke risk. The study also confirmed that stroke risk was higher in these young patients if they had evidence of the other established risk factors for stroke, such as use of oral contraceptives (in women), smoking, and high blood pressure. Men were also more likely to have a stroke than women.