Genetic factors of different ethnic groups and regional disparities in comorbidities play a critical role in influencing the burden of stroke, which has emerged as one of the leading causes of death globally, a study conducted by the Rajiv Gandhi Centre for Biotechnology (RGCB) has reported.
“The underlying genetic factors are very critical in determining and defining the regional variations that influence stroke and its comorbidities which, in turn, can define the burden of stroke,” the study conducted by Moinak Banerjee, a researcher with the Neurobiology Division of the Rajiv Gandhi Centre for Biotechnology (BRIC-RGCB), noted.
The research paper, ‘Ethnic and region-specific genetic risk variants of stroke and its comorbid conditions can define the variations in the burden of stroke and its phenotypic traits’, published in the biomedical publication eLife, demonstrated that while metabolic risk is a major driver for stroke in America and Europe, it is vascular risk that drives stroke incidence in Asian and African regions.
This is a clear indicator that stroke and its comorbid factors show strong regional disparities and ethnic and region-specific genetic factors. Comorbidities in stroke can amplify the risk of stroke and its outcome.
The findings of the study, covering 204 countries, were based on data collected from 2009-19 for stroke and its major comorbid risks. A total of eleven diseases were studied, and these included overall stroke, its subtypes ischemic stroke (IS), intracranial haemorrhage (ICH), along with its comorbid factors like ischemic heart disease(IHD), diabetes type 1 & type 2, chronic kidney disease, high blood pressure, high body mass index(BMI), and high LDL cholesterol.
Strokes affected over 101 million people worldwide and caused over 6.55 million deaths in 2019, making it one of the leading causes of mortality. In India, strokes caused 6,99,000 deaths in 2019, which was 7.4% of the total deaths in the country.
The study can significantly contribute to the prevention and management of the stroke, as it views the disease from population point of view, Director of the RGCB, Chandrabhas Narayana says.
The study points out that a majority of public health researchers interpret the burden of stroke from the socio-economic perspective while biomedical researchers investigate strokes in isolation.
This study demonstrates that stroke and its comorbid factors show strong regional disparities and that policy-makers need to pay attention to these factors when planning programmes to reduce the burden of comorbidities and in turn, the burden of stroke.
Published - July 15, 2024 08:21 pm IST
