Smoking Families Have Higher Stroke Risk

(January 2, 2009) - If you smoke and someone in your family has had a stroke (Read about "Stroke"), you are 6 times more likely to have a stroke also. (Read about "Family Health History") A new study shows that people who are smokers and have a family history of brain aneurysm (Read about "Aneurysms") appear to be significantly more likely to suffer a stroke from a brain aneurysm themselves. The type of stroke, called subarachnoid hemorrhage, is one of the bleeding types of stroke and is deadly in about 35 to 40 percent of people.

In the study, scientists looked at 339 people who suffered a stroke from a brain aneurysm and 1,016 people who had not had a stroke due to an aneurysm. Current smokers made up half of the group that had a stroke. The other half had never smoked or had smoked in the past.

The research found people who smoked and had a family history of stroke were more than six times more likely to suffer a stroke than those who did not smoke and did not have a family history of stroke or brain aneurysm. The study also found that people with a family history of stroke could cut their risk by more than half by quitting smoking. The results were the same regardless of high blood pressure, diabetes, alcohol use, body mass index and education level. (Read about "Hypertension: High Blood Pressure" "Diabetes" "Alcoholism" "Body Mass Index")

"While all people should be advised to quit smoking (Read about "Quit Smoking"), our findings suggest that there is an interaction so that if you smoke and you have a family history of aneurysms, you are at an extremely high risk of suffering a stroke from a ruptured brain aneurysm," says study author Daniel Woo, MD.

The research is published in the online issue of Neurology and will appear in the print issue of Neurology.