Although the incidence of stroke is increasing steadily among young adults, the incidence of acute myocardial infarction (AMI) remains stable, a new analysis suggests.
This finding raises the question of whether cardiovascular risk factors are the main cause of the increasing incidence of stroke among younger people, said the researchers.
"It has been a mystery why the number of strokes in young adults has been growing," Michelle Hu Leppert, MD, assistant professor of neurology at the University of Colorado School of Medicine in Aurora, told Medscape Medical News. "This is a trend seen worldwide."
Leppert presented the findings at the European Stroke Organization-World Stroke Organization (ESO-WSO) Conference 2020.
The incidence of stroke has risen among young adults even as it has declined markedly in older adults. In 2017, a study by George and colleagues showed that discharge diagnoses for cardiovascular risk factors among young adults who had been hospitalized for stroke had increased over time.
Improvements in diagnostic coding might explain the observation, but some suggested that the prevalence of cardiovascular risk factors in young adults may be increasing.
Stroke and AMI may be considered analogous diseases because they share many cardiovascular risk factors, Leppert said. The researchers hypothesized that if cardiovascular risk factors were causing increased stroke incidence among young adults, the same trend should hold for AMI incidence in this population.
