OKLAHOMA CITY
A medical study led by a University of Oklahoma health researcher shows that American Indians have more strokes and a higher fatality rate from their first stroke when compared to Whites and Blacks.
“Smoking, high blood pressure and a lack of exercise can be major predictors of a stroke, and those risk factors are significant in American Indians,” said Dr. Ying Zhang of the OU Health Sciences Center in Oklahoma City.
Zhang and colleagues analyzed 4,549 middle-aged and older people in the Strong Heart Study involving 13 American Indian tribes or communities.
It is the largest epidemiologic study of cardiovascular-related disease in American Indians, according to OU officials.
Findings were published online this week in “Circulation: Journal of the American Heart Association.”
A stroke occurs when the blood supply to part of the brain is suddenly interrupted, or when a blood vessel in the brain bursts, spilling blood into the spaces surrounding brain cells. Brain cells die when they no longer receive oxygen and nutrients from the blood, or there is sudden bleeding into or around the brain.
