Every 40 seconds, someone in the United States has a stroke. Did you know that women are more likely to experience a stroke than men, and to die from one?
While 1 in 6 men will experience a stroke at some point, 1 in 5 women will have one, amounting to approximately 55,000 more women than men having a stroke in any given year. What makes stroke more likely among women?
The answer is complex. Men and women share many risk factors for stroke, but women also have some unique risk factors. Keep reading to learn more.
Stroke Risk Factors for Both Men & Women
The risk factors for stroke fall into two primary categories—factors you can’t change and factors you can control.
Nonchangeable risk factors include:
- Being Black
- Being of advanced age
- Having a family history of stroke, especially before age 65
- Having had a previous stroke, heart attack, or transient ischemic attack (TIA)
While you don’t have control over those risk factors, you can take steps to mitigate other risk factors, including:
- Atrial fibrillation
- Diabetes
- Diet high in saturated fat and sodium
- High blood pressure
- High cholesterol
- Physical inactivity
- Obesity
- Sleep apnea
- Smoking
If you have risk factors related to your lifestyle, such as being physically inactive, making positive changes to your habits can lower your risk. If you have risk factors related to other medical conditions, work with your primary care provider or a specialist to effectively manage and treat that condition, which will also lower your risk of stroke.
Women-Specific Risk Factors for Stroke
In addition to the risk factors above, women also face some sex- and gender-specific risk factors. For one, women can experience health challenges during pregnancy that increase their risk of stroke at the time and in the future.
Being pregnant is a risk factor in and of itself. Pregnant women are three times more likely to have a stroke than non-pregnant women of the same age.
Experiencing preeclampsia during pregnancy is also a risk factor for stroke. This condition, which causes excessively high blood pressure, doubles a woman’s risk of having a stroke later in life. Gestational high blood pressure and gestational diabetes also increase the risk of stroke.
Other risk factors for women include:
- Having atrial fibrillation
- Having diabetes
- Having migraines with aura, especially when combined with smoking
- Taking birth control pills, especially in combination with high blood pressure
- Using hormone replacement therapy after menopause
While migraines with aura, atrial fibrillation, and diabetes also affect men, researchers have found that these factors tend to more significantly impact a woman’s risk than a man’s.
We mentioned above that having had a stroke is a risk factor for having another stroke. That’s true for both men and women—nearly 1 in 4 strokes occurs in someone who previously had a stroke.
However, recent research found that women who have experienced a stroke are more likely than men not to take the medication needed to prevent another stroke, including cholesterol medications and blood thinners.
What You Can Do to Lower Your Risk
Your best strategy for preventing a stroke is to practice healthy lifestyle habits. Eat a balanced diet that’s filled with fruits and vegetables, limit your intake of saturated fat and sodium, exercise for at least 150 minutes each week, get plenty of quality sleep, don’t smoke, and find healthy ways to manage stress.
Beyond those habits, women need to take other steps to protect their health and lower their risk:
- If you’re pregnant, pay close attention to your blood pressure and follow your provider’s instructions if you experience high blood pressure.
- Before taking oral contraceptives, talk with your provider about your health and habits and consider alternative options if you smoke or have high blood pressure.
- Before beginning hormone replacement therapy, talk with your provider about whether it’s the most appropriate treatment for the symptoms you’re experiencing.
- Quit smoking if you smoke, especially if you have migraines. Same goes for vaping.
- Beginning at age 75, be screened for atrial fibrillation.
It’s also important—and potentially lifesaving—to know the signs of stroke and what to do if they occur. Memorizing the acronym FAST is a helpful place to begin. The letters in the word can help you spot a stroke:
- F is for face drooping.
- A is for arm weakness.
- S is for speech difficulty.
- T is for time to call 911.
Other symptoms of stroke may include sudden numbness or weakness, confusion, difficulty speaking or understanding speech, vision problems, dizziness, loss of balance or coordination, difficulty walking, or a severe headache with no known cause. Any of these symptoms can be an indicator of stroke, and when a stroke happens, minutes matter.
Call 911 if you or someone else are experiencing symptoms of a stroke, so that potentially lifesaving care can begin while in transit to the hospital.
You don’t have to travel far to get the comprehensive neurological care you need, including emergency care to treat a stroke. West Tennessee Healthcare has been designated an Advanced Primary Stroke Center by the Joint Commission.
