Young adults who suffer from migraines are more likely to suffer a stroke, research shows

Factors not traditionally associated with increased risk of Cerebral Vascular Accident (CVA)especially the migraine, may be associated with an increased chance of developing stroke in young adults. This is what indicates new study published in Circulationscientific magazine linked to the American Heart Association, last Tuesday, 26.

Traditionally, the risk factors associated with a stroke are: hypertension, type 2 diabetes, high cholesterol, obesity, smoking, physical inactivity, excessive alcohol use, family history, among others. There are, however, less frequent factors that may also be associated with this phenomenon, such as migraines, kidney failure, autoimmune diseases, hepatitis and thrombophilia.

The goal of the research led by Michelle Leppert, assistant professor of neurology at the Colorado School of Medicine, in U.Sit was precisely to discover which risk factors are most associated with the appearance of strokes in adults of 18 to 55 years old.

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To do this, the researchers analyzed complaints registered with the Colorado health insurance bank between 2012 and 2019 from people in this age group. From this data, they compared the frequency of traditional and non-traditional risk factors between 2,618 people who had a stroke and 7,827 who did not. It is worth noting that most of the strokes analyzed were ischemic, that is, caused by the obstruction of an artery that supplies oxygen to the brain.

In the youngest group, 18 to 34 years old, non-traditional factors, especially migraine, were more prominent than traditional factors in relation to the appearance of strokes. In this age group, 43% of women and 31% of men who had strokes had one of these factors, while 33% of women and 25% of men reported having some of the more traditional factors. It is also important to highlight that not all strokes were associated with some risk factor.

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In the age group of 35 to 44 years old, traditional risk factors prevailed, being associated with 33% of stroke cases in men and 40% in women. Non-traditional factors, however, remained relevant and appeared in 27% of men and 40% of women.

In the age group of 45 to 55 years old, non-traditional risk factors appeared much less significantly. These were present in 19% of men who had a stroke and 28% of women. On the other hand, traditional risk factors continued to rise, being associated with 32% of stroke cases in men and 40% of cases in women.

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Overall, the study found a significant presence of non-traditional risk factors in men and women aged 18 to 44 who had a stroke. Therefore, the younger the age, the greater the impact of these factors.

Reasons behind the numbers

In an interview given to Estadão, researcher Michelle Leppert, who led the research, commented that one of the reasons behind the prominence of non-traditional risk factors in younger adults is the low frequency of other factors in this population. “Migraines are quite common among young adults, unlike diseases such as hypertension and type 2 diabetes, which are more associated with older people. Therefore, the chance of a young person having a stroke related to factors such as migraines is greater,” she explains.

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Neurologist Sheila Martins, head of Neurology and Neurosurgery at Hospital Moinhos de Vento, in Porto Alegre, goes in the same direction. “As a rule, strokes happen more often in people over 60 years of age and, therefore, the most well-known and considered traditional factors are more frequent in this age group,” she says.

Furthermore, the neurologist highlights that it is not just any type of migraine that can increase the risk of stroke, but specifically the migraine with aura. “This is a more serious migraine, in which there is reduced blood circulation in a part of the brain. In these conditions, before the headaches, there are usually changes in vision and, eventually, in speech or movement”, he describes.

In the study, the type of migraine reported in the cases analyzed was not specified. There is, however, a suggestion made based on other research that migraine with aura would be more associated with stroke cases.

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Although cases of stroke in young people are rarer, the research author highlighted the importance of shedding light on the subject. “Historically, traditional factors associated with older people end up receiving more attention, but non-traditional factors also need to be taken into consideration”, she points out.