Stroke Incidence Reduced 40% in the Last 20 Years

Reduction in mortality due to various forms of heart disease is one of the larger recent past drivers of the slow upward trend in adult and elderly life expectancy. A reduction in the incidence of Stroke is most likely due to many of the same underlying advances in medical practice. It is welcome, but worth remembering that the technologies and approaches that have created the present trend in life expectancy have very little to do with what lies ahead. The whole approach to aging is changing, and future trends will be very different from the present ones, because researchers will be trying to actually treat the causes of aging and all age-related disease rather than only patching the symptoms. A new analysis of data from 1988-2008 has revealed a 40% decrease in the incidence of stroke in Medicare patients 65 years of age and older. This decline is greater than anticipated considering this population's risk factors for stroke, and applies to both ischemic and hemorrhagic strokes. Investigators also found death resulting from stroke declined during the same period. The team identified more than one million stroke events from 1988 to 2008, of which 87.3% were ischemic and 12.7% hemorrhagic strokes. The analysis showed a reduction in ischemic strokes from 927 per 100,000 in 1988 to just 545 per 100,000 in 2008. Hemorrhagic strokes decreased from 112 per 100,000 to 94 per 100,000 over the same time period, primarily among men. Data indicated that stroke mortality also declined. ...
Source: Fight Aging! - Category: Research Authors: Tags: Daily News Source Type: blogs