Stroke hits younger demographic, prevalent in the summer months

Yang Bai-jia, a rehabilitation attending physician at the MMH who partook in the research, noted that in a study of 227 stroke patients between the ages of 15 to 45, 67.4 are male.

Cerebral hemorrhage seemed to be the bigger contributing factor, taking up 56.3 percent of stroke cases, while 43.7 percent were due to ischemia, or lack of blood supply from thrombosis or embolism, said Yang.

Yang explained that the trending towards more stroke cases diagnosed over the summer probably relates to lifestyle choices maintained by the younger generation.

People are more active from June to August and often stay up late eating and drinking excessively, which prompts blood pressures to skyrocket for those who already are hypertensive, said Yang.

According to Chou Deh-yang, vice-superintendent of the Stroke Center at the China Medical University Hospital, this seasonal pattern is strikingly different from the tendency seen amongst the elderly to suffer strokes during the wintertime, as the lower temperature induces constriction of blood vessels which thereby causes blood pressure to accordingly rise.

As such, Chou advised that, given the latest research, the younger demographic with hypertension be more wary of keeping their blood pressures in check and getting the requisite six hours of sleep every night.

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