Alcohol drinking and risk of stroke in a case-control study in Taiwan

[[abstract]]©2003 APHA - Stroke is the second most lethal cause of death for population in Taiwan. But there are limited studies investigating risk factors associated with stroke. The authors examined the association between usual life style, hypertension and risk of stroke in a hospital based case-control study that included 131 stroke cases in four community hospitals and 130 randomly selected controls from the same hospitals aged 60 years old above. There was no significant difference between cases and controls in age, occupation, education, smoking and exercise, while cases drank (16.9 percent) more commonly than controls (4.7 percent). Cases were also more common with hypertension than controls, 72.3 vs. 37.8 percent. The multivariate logistic regression showed that, among all lifestyle variables, drinking was the only significant risk factor associated with stroke (odds ratio (OR)=6.2, 95% confidence interval (CI)=1.9-20.4). Compared with controls, other significant factors associated with the risk of stroke were patients of hypertension (OR=4.2, 95%CI=2.2-8.0) and patients of 60-69 years old (OR=3.8, 95%CI=1.3-11.4). The findings suggest that drink increases the risk of stroke for population in Taiwan.[[department]]生醫工程與環境科學