Article Abstract:
The publication in 1970 of the Framingham study linking elevated blood pressure to stroke was a landmark event. During the 1960s evidence grew that even persons with moderate hypertension were at risk for stroke and heart disease. The Framingham study, which followed 5,209 healthy adults aged 30 to 62 years for 14 years, provided the definitive study. It confirmed growing suspicions by showing that the risk of stroke increased directly as blood pressure increased. It also showed that the systolic, or upper value, was as important or more important than the diastolic, or lower value.
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Article Abstract:
Oral contraceptives (OCs) can increase the risk of stroke, even those that contain low doses of estrogen. This was the conclusion of researchers who used a technique called meta-analysis to combine the results of 16 studies that evaluated the risk of stroke in women who used OCs. Overall, women who used OCs had twice the risk of stroke as women who did not. However, strokes in women who used OCs were still relatively rare, occurring at the rate of one additional stroke per year for every 24,000 women.
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Article Abstract:
The importance of proper identification and diagnosis of symptoms to determine the difference between a transient ischemic stroke and a transient ischemic attack (TIA) are discussed.
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