Weight of the Obesity Epidemic: Rising Stroke Rates Among Middle-Aged Women in the United States

Recent US nationally representative data revealed that among individuals aged 45 to 54 years, women's stroke prevalence was double that of men's. The purpose of this study was to determine if the sex disparity existed previously. We assessed sex-specific stroke and vascular risk factor prevalence among individuals aged 35 to 64 years who participated in the National Health and Nutrition Examination Surveys (NHANES), a cross-sectional, nationally representative survey conducted in 2 waves: 1988 to 1994 (n=7234) and 1999 to 2004 (n=6499). Women aged 35 to 54 years who participated in NHANES from 1999 to 2004 were 3 times more likely to have experienced a stroke compared with similarly aged women in NHANES 1988 to 1994 (1.8% versus 0.6%, P=0.003), but stroke prevalence among men did not change (0.9% versus 1.0%, nonsignificant). Among women, the prevalence of obesity (15.2% versus 17.9%, P=0.08), morbid obesity (12.8% versus 17.5%, P=0.003), abdominal obesity (47.4% versus 58.9%, P