Stroke deaths have halved in last decade

Research has found that deaths in England caused by stroke have halved in the past 10 years as a result of better treatment.

The number of strokes has fallen among older people, who have been the target of medical interventions to control their blood pressure, but those younger than 55 are found to be having more strokes, likely a result of a rise in obesity and type 2 diabetes. Of 425,000 strokes in the first decade of the 21st century, about 33,000 were in people under the age of 55.

Published in the British Medical Journal, the study shows that the overall number of strokes fell by 20 per cent between 2001 and 2010, but, after adjusting for age and other potential factors, stroke deaths were seen to have decreased by 55 per cent during the study period.

Olena Seminog, of the Nuffield department of population health at Oxford University, said: “This is very good news but we should still appreciate the importance of prevention because people who have a stroke do have a high chance of surviving now, but many survivors will still [have] a lot of disability. That can be sometimes severe. It will have an impact on their lives and their families’ lives.”