Why is stroke more dangerous for people with dark skin?

A recent study revealed that stroke is more deadly among brown-skinned people than white-skinned people, and the reason for this may be due to genetics.

Researchers who studied the genomes of more than 21,000 brown people found that a common variation near the HNF1A gene was associated with an increased risk of stroke in people of African descent.

The gene has been linked to stroke and heart disease.

“Given the undue burden that people of African descent bear from stroke and other cerebrovascular disease, the lack of investigation into risk factors in this group was a significant gap,” said Dr. Bradford Worrall, a neurologist at the University of Virginia Health in Charlottesville.

"Our work is an important step towards bridging this gap, although there is a lot of work to be done. These results will provide insight into the specific ethnic and global risk factors to reduce the second leading cause of death worldwide," he added in a university press release. .

To date, most studies of genetic stroke have focused on white people. This new analysis is from the Consortium for Population-based Genome Association Studies on Stroke (COMPASS).

The study looked at the genomes of more than 3,700 people who had strokes and more than 18,000 people who had not.