How Genetically at risk of stroke? A healthy lifestyle can help

Stroke is the second leading cause of death worldwide and a major cause of disability and dementia.

• Researchers investigated how cardiovascular health interacts with a high genetic risk for stroke.

• They found that optimal cardiovascular health reduces the lifetime risk of stroke among those with a high genetic risk.

• Basic lifestyle interventions, such as following a healthy diet, exercising, and not smoking cigarettes, partially offset this risk.In the United States, adults aged 25 and over have a lifetime risk of stroke of around 24%.

  Both genetic and environmental factors influence stroke risk. Managing cardiometabolic risk factors and promoting healthy lifestyle behavior are frontlineTrusted Source strategies for improving cardiovascular health and decreasing stroke risk.

  Recent genome-wide association studiesTrusted Source have identified multiple risk variants for stroke and have enabledTrusted Source the development of genetic risk scores that predict stroke incidence.

  It has been unclear whether improving cardiovascular health may offset the genetic risk for stroke.

  Recently, however, researchers found that maintaining optimal cardiovascular health can partially offset a high genetic risk for stroke, reducing a person’s overall lifetime stroke risk.

  The study appears in the Journal of the American Heart AssociationTrusted Source.

  “The public message is clear,” Dr. Tatjana Rundek, professor of neurology and public health sciences at the University of Miami, not involved in the study, told Medical News Today.Regardless of the potential of harboring ‘bad’ genetic risk, improving cardiovascular health should be the most important priority for public health. Promoting ideal cardiovascular health should start at an early age, and many of us believe that we should start with a healthy diet and exercise at birth,” she noted.Data analysis 

  For the study, the researchers analyzed data from 11,568 middle-aged adults who were stroke-free at baseline, and followed them for an average of 28 years.

  Their lifetime risk of stroke was estimated from levels of genetic risk based on a validated stroke polygenic risk score and levels of cardiovascular health according to the American Heart Association’s “Life’s Simple 7Trusted Source,” which are now revised and updated to “Life’s Essential 8Trusted Source.”The initial “Life’s Simple 7” recommendations are:

  Over the follow-up period, 1,138 participants were diagnosed with stroke. Of these, 14% had a low genetic risk, 41.7% had an intermediate genetic risk, and 44.3% a high genetic risk.

  The researchers further noted that participants who scored low on “Life’s Simple 7” experienced 56.8% of stroke events, whereas those with optimal “Life’s Simple 7” measures experienced 6.2% of strokes.

  Altogether, they found that participants with the highest genetic risk and lowest “Life’s Simple 7” scores had the highest lifetime risk of stroke at 24.8%.

  They further found that across all polygenic risk score categories, those with an optimal “Life’s Simple 7” score had a 30-43% lower lifetime risk of stroke than those with an inadequate “Life’s Simple 7” score.

  This, they noted, corresponded to 6 additional years of stroke-free life in those with the highest genetic risk.

  Reducing stroke risk

  Prof. Lu Qi, distinguished chair and professor in the Department of Epidemiology at Tulane University School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine, not involved in the study, told MNT:Prof. Rundek added that “[i]t may be hard to achieve and maintain ideal ‘Life’s Simple 7’ cardiovascular [score] if there is a strong individual genetic susceptibility to stroke risk [which includes] an increased risk of hypertension and other ‘Life’s Simple 7’ factors.”