Being a man… or a woman
The stroke risk: Men are more likely than women to have a stroke… until age 75, according to statistics from the American Heart Association. Then the chance evens out; after age 85, women are at greater risk.
“There’s a misconception that stroke is a disease of old men,” says Larry B. Goldstein, MD, chairman of the Department of Neurology and co-director of the Kentucky Neuroscience Institute at the University of Kentucky.
The good news? For both men and women, as many as 9 out of 10 strokes are preventable by minimizing risk factors, according to a July 2016 study of 26,000 people by McMaster University in Ontario, Canada.
Reduce it: You’ve cut your risk just by reading this, because knowledge is power. Next, lower your chances of having a stroke by focusing on factors you can control, especially if you didn’t think you had anything to worry about.
