Association of obesity with stroke

Introduction:Obesity is an established risk factor for cardiovascular disease, but the relationship of obesity with the risk of cerebrovascular disease to some extent, is still unclear.Objectives: To assess the relationship of obesity with the risk of stroke.Methods: By non probability sampling one hundred patients of stroke presented between 27th January 2008 to 26th July 2008 in emergency and outpatient medical department of capital hospital Islamabad, Pakistan were selected. Their body mass index (BMI) was calculated and its association with the type and severity of stroke was analyzed for statistical differences. Association of BMI with blood pressure, blood glucose levels and cholesterol was also measured. Statistical analysis was performed by SPSS 13. The P value of significance < 0.05 was adopted.Results: 53% of the patients were male and 47% were female. Mean age in females was more than males.72% of the strokes were ischemic and 28% were hemorrhagic.BMI was normal in 71% of the patients while high BMI was found in 29% patients. 56% of the patients had mild stroke, 25% had moderate and 19% had severe stroke. Hemorrhagic strokes were closely related to the severity of strokes (P value= 0.000). Patients with high BMI had 13.8% hemorrhagic stroke and 86.2% of ischemic stroke (P value= 0.034). The severity of stroke was not associated with a high BMI (P value= 0.914). Obesity was also found to be associated with hypertension, high blood glucose levels and high cholesterol levels.Conclusion: BMI is associated with an increased risk of total and ischemic stroke but not with hemorrhagic stroke. There is no relationship between high BMI and severity of stroke.