The chances of suffering a heart attack are significantly higher in stroke survivors, according to a new study out of Western University.
Researchers found both men and women with no underlying heart disease were more than 20 times more likely to have a major cardiovascular event within 30 days of having a stroke.
A cardiovascular event can include heart attack, chest pain, cardiac failure, or cardiac death.
After 30 days, the risk of dangerous heart complications drops. However, the overall risk is still present with stroke survivors still twice as likely to have a heart attack one year later, compared to those who have never had a stroke.
Researchers examined data on more than 90,000 Ontario adults over the age of 65 with no pre-existing clinical diagnosis of heart disease that has suffered a cardiovascular complication. Just over 20,000 had previously suffered a stroke, while the remaining 70,000 hadn't but had similar vascular risk factors, comorbidities and demographic characteristics.
While it has always been believed the connection between heart attacks and strokes is due to shared risk factors like high blood pressure, diabetes or smoking, researchers found the same factors were present in those who had not had a stroke.
“This shows that after taking risk factors into consideration, having experienced a recent stroke was independently associated with the incidence of major adverse cardiac events,” Dr. Sposato, Western's associate professor and director of the Heart & Brain Laboratory, said in a statement. “This leads us to believe that there are underlying mechanisms linked to stroke that may be causing heart disease.”
Sposato is optimistic the results of the study will nudge health care providers into watching more closely for cardiovascular symptoms in patients who recently had strokes.
“My hope is that neurologists, cardiologists and scientists can work more closely together on this brain-heart connection so that in the future we can understand and target the underlying mechanisms to prevent heart disease after stroke,” said Sposato.
The study was recently published in the American Heart Association Journal, Stroke.