Middle aged women who do not care about their expanding
waistlines may face higher risk of stoke, U.S. researchers told a
health conference Wednesday.
Researchers saw that the stroke rate had spiked in middle-aged
women aged 35 to 54, nearly 2 percent in the most recent National
Health survey conducted from 1999 to 2004, compared with only half
a percent in the previous survey, from 1988 to 1994.
They looked deeper and found that the portion of women with
abdominal obesity rose from 47 percent in the earlier survey to 59
percent in the recent one. Meanwhile the comparison showed that
women's waistlines were nearly five cm bigger than they were a
decade earlier, rising from 27 in the earlier survey to 29 in the
latter one.
"Abdominal obesity is a known predictor of stroke in women and
may be a key factor in the midlife stroke surge in women," said
Amytis Towfighi, a neurology specialist who led the study at the
University of Southern California in Los Angeles.
The stroke stayed about the same -- around 1 percent -- in
middle-aged men.
Statistics show that stroke is the third leading cause of death
and a major cause of long term disability in the United States.
The new research indicated the need to intensify efforts in
curbing the obesity epidemic in the United States, said
Towfighi.
(Agencies via Xinhua News Agency February 21, 2008)
