Frequent Stroke Risk Higher for Some Hispanics

Study finds,Mexican-Americans with atrial fibrillation twice as likely to suffer a second stroke compared to whites.
Mexican-American stroke survivors with a heart rhythm disorder called atrial fibrillation are more than twice as likely to suffer a second stroke compared to white patients, a new study finds.
It also found that even though these strokes are more likely to be severe among Mexican-Americans, they don't have a greater risk of death after a second stroke.
In people with atrial fibrillation, the heart's upper chambers (atria) beat irregularly and don't pump blood effectively. This can cause blood to pool within the atria, which can lead to the formation of blood clots that can break off and travel to the brain, causing a stroke.
This study included 88 Mexican-Americans and 148 white stroke survivors with atrial fibrillation. Compared to the white patients, the Mexican-American stroke survivors were younger, less likely to have completed 12 years of education, more likely to have diabetes, and less likely to have a primary care physician.
Over a median follow-up of 427.5 days, 19 Mexican-Americans and 14 whites had at least one recurrent stroke. All but one of those cases involved an ischemic stroke, which is caused by blocked blood flow to the brain. One Mexican-American patient suffered a hemorrhagic stroke, which is bleeding in the brain.
"Based on some of our prior research, we were not necessarily surprised by the higher recurrence rate in Mexican-Americans with atrial fibrillation, but the greater severity of recurrent strokes in Mexican-Americans was surprising," co-author Dr. Darin B. Zahuranec, an assistant professor of neurology at the University of Michigan Cardiovascular Research Center in Ann Arbor, said in an American Heart Association news release.
One reason for the difference in stroke rates could be that Mexican-Americans may not have managed the blood-thinning drug warfarin -- often used to prevent stroke -- in the most optimal way, Zahuranec said. He and his colleagues did not evaluate outpatient use of warfarin, which might have contributed to the increased risk of stroke in Mexican-Americans.

The New Study Identifies Risks for Painkiller Addiction

Greater odds if you're younger than 65, have a history of drug violence and depression, and use psychiatric meds. The mystery of why some people are more likely to become obsessed to opioid painkillers has been partially unraveled by the Geisinger Health System in Pennsylvania.
Its researchers found that the group most helpless to addiction has four main risk factors in common: age a history of depression, prior drug abuse, and using psychiatric medications. Painkiller dependence rates among patients with these factors are as high as 26 percent.
For the study, they interviewed and analyzed DNA from 705 patients with back pain who were arranged opioid painkillers -- a class that includes such narcotics as morphine and codeine -- for more than 90 days.
The researchers also studied a gene on chromosome 15 that has been connected with alcohol, cocaine and nicotine addiction. The data recommended that DNA mutations on a gene gather on chromosome 15 may also be associated with opioid addiction. "These results suggest that patients with pre-existing risk factors are more likely to become addicted to painkillers, providing the basis for further clinical evaluation," Joseph Boscarino, an epidemiologist and senior researcher at Geisinger's Center for Health Research, said in a health system news release.
"By assessing patients in chronic pain for these risk factors before prescribing painkillers, doctors will be better able to treat their patients' pain without the probable for future drug addiction," he added. Boscarino and colleagues also said these same risk factors may enlarge the risk of drug addiction in patients without a history of chronic pain.