A meta-analysis of papers published on diabetes shows that diabetic women are more susceptible to stroke than diabetic men, possibly because of obesity.
Accept healthy (Mar, 2014) – A review of more than 60 studies has shown that women with Type II diabetes have a 27 percent higher risk of stroke than men with diabetes. The study is the first to reveal that the risk of diabetes-related stroke significantly differs in women and men.
“Research has previously shown that diabetes confers a greater risk of having a heart attack in women than men, and now we have shown that this gender difference also extends to stroke,” said Professor Rachel Huxley from the University of Queensland School of Population Health.“Our analysis of the data showed, in comparison to men with diabetes, women with the condition had a 27 per cent higher relative risk of stroke even after taking into account other risk factors such as age and blood pressure.”
Diabetes is a global health concern, currently affecting an estimated 347 million people worldwide. It is predicted to increase by more than 50 percent over the next decade due to the prevalence of overweight, obese and physically inactive people.
One possible reason for why diabetic women face a higher risk of stroke than men could be linked to obesity.
“Men tend to become diabetic at lower levels of body mass index compared with women. Consequently, by the time women develop diabetes and begin receiving intervention from a GP, their levels of other cardiovascular risk factors – including BMI – are higher than in men with diabetes who may have been picked up – and treated – at an earlier stage of the condition,” she said.
“It may be this chronic exposure to high levels of cardiovascular risk factors in the lead up to developing diabetes that may be responsible for the greater risk of stroke that we see in women with diabetes than in similarly affected men.”