LipitorCare News » February 07

Women with High Cholesterol at risk of Strokes
19 Feb. 2007

According to a Boston Report, women who have no history of any illness, but have high cholesterol levels are significantly more likely to suffer a stroke.

One of the doctors from Brigham and Women's hospital point out that most studies done to look at cholesterol and stroke connection have included people who already had heart disease and women were not included in that study.

A team from same hospital analyzed data from the Women's Health Study. The study was done on 28,000 women aged 45 and older during 1992 and 1995. At the beginning of the study none of them have any serious illness, heart disease and cancer.

After follow up of 11 years 282 stokes occurred.

According to investigators report people in the group with high level of HDL (good) cholesterol cut the risk of stroke nearly in half, but those with the highest level of LDL (bad) cholesterol doubled the chances of having a stroke.

"Our results further underscore the importance of unfavorable lipid levels as risk factors for ... stroke among apparently healthy individuals without prior vascular disease," Kurth concluded.