MedWire News: Older people can minimise their risk of suffering a stroke by maintaining good physical health, UK study results suggest.

Lead researcher Dr Phyo Kyaw Myint, from Addenbrooke's University Hospital in Cambridge, and colleagues explain that smoking, heart disease, high blood pressure and other risk factors are associated with an increased risk of stroke.

But they add: "A substantial proportion of strokes are unexplained by the classic risk factors alone."

To investigate whether physical health influences a person's risk of stroke, the researchers studied 13,615 people aged between 40 and 79 years.

At the start of the study, the participants underwent health examinations and were assessed for their ability to climb stairs, carry groceries, kneel, bend and lift heavy objects.

Over an average monitoring period of around 6 years, 244 of the participants suffered a stroke.

Analysis revealed that participants who had the best physical health at the start of the study were around 50% less likely to suffer a stroke than those with the poorest physical health.

The findings remained true after accounting for age, gender, body mass index, blood pressure and cholesterol levels, smoking, diabetes and a variety of other factors, says the team.

Writing in the journal Neurology, Dr Myint and colleagues conclude that physical function assessments "may identify men and women in the apparently healthy general population at increased risk of stroke independent of classic risk factors who may benefit most from preventive interventions".