TRIP

High levels of blood fats raises stroke risk in women

Best Health News, 2012

Older women who have high amounts of fats called triglycerides in their blood are at a higher risk of stroke, according to a study that researchers say is the first of its kind.
All the fats in foods you eat are changed into lipids called cholesterol, or another type called triglycerides.
We know that if you have high levels of some types of lipids in your blood, they can build up to form fatty deposits along the inside of the blood vessels.
It is harder for blood to flow through narrowed blood vessels and this puts you at risk of heart disease.
Researchers analysed an ongoing study of 82,000 women aged between 50 and 79, and looked at 972 women who had a stroke and 972 women of a similar age and ethnicity.
The women all had their levels of triglycerides, ‘good’ high-density lipoprotein (HDL) cholesterol and ‘bad’ low-density lipoprotein (LDL) cholesterol measured.
Of all the blood lipids measured, it was only triglyceride levels that raised the risk of stroke.
Women with the highest triglyceride levels had a 56 percent higher risk of stroke than women with the lowest amounts of triglycerides in their blood.
This risk occurred even after the researchers accounted for things we know can raise stroke risk, such as age, whether women were smokers, their weight, how much exercise they took and whether they had high blood pressure or diabetes.
This study only looked at women, who were of mostly the same race and ethnic background.
Previous research has suggested that women with high levels of triglycerides in their blood have a higher risk of heart attacks and strokes than men with similar triglyceride levels.