Strokes on the Rise in the Young

Strokes are on the rise in one segment of the population, young people.

For years strokes have been thought of as a problem that gets worse as we get older. But even though we didn't use to think they affected younger adults, that's the one group were the number of strokes are actually going up. And that's raising alarms in the medical community.

Recently a lot of effort has been placed on preventing strokes. The message has gotten out—controlling high blood pressure and cholesterol, exercising regularly, and stopping smoking are your best bets to keeping your risk of having a stroke as low as possible But this message has been mainly targeted at us as we get older. And it's worked! The rates of strokes in the elderly have improved over the last few years.

But a new group, surprising some experts, is actually showing an increase in strokes! Since 1993, there's been a rise in stroke victims younger than 45. Experts think it's because prevention messages haven't been targeted to this age group, but are hoping that will change soon. And they say the message is the same, whether you're 40 or 80. Exercise, eat well and quit smoking. Hopefully this message for all groups will cut everyone's chances of a stoke over the next few years.