Another Risk Of Smoking: Bleeding In The Brain

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This news comes from Finland where researchers discovered a link between smoking and a type of often fatal bleeding stroke among more than 16,000 pairs of same sex twins living in Denmark, Sweden and Finland. The researchers found 120 of these fatal strokes among the twins and determined that the strongest link was smoking. They reported that heavy and moderate smokers had three times the normal risk of fatal bleeding in the brain while light smokers had 2.8 times the risk compared to their non-smoking peers. The median age for those suffering the fatal bleeds was 61.4 years. The investigators found that risk factors such as high blood pressure, lower physical activity rates and being female were not significant influences and that smoking was more consistently linked with fatal bleeding in the brain in both men and women. The researchers were unable to estimate the impact of former smoking on brain bleeds.

Source:
Ilari Rautalin et al, “Smoking Causes Fatal Subarachnoid Hemorrhage.”Stroke, September 17, 2020; DOI: 10.1161/STROKEAHA.120.031231