If mom had a stroke, daughter’s risk of stroke, heart attack rise

Women whose mothers had a stroke have a higher risk of both stroke and heart attack, researchers reported Tuesday.

It’s well-known that heart disease in one’s parents increases the risk in their offspring. However, there appear to be sex-specific tendencies in how cardiovascular disease is inherited. In the study, researchers from the University of Oxford examined data from more than 2,200 women. Women with heart disease were more likely to have mothers who had a stroke than fathers who had a stroke.

In a previous study, the same researchers found that women have a higher risk of heart attack before age 65 if their mothers had a heart attack at a younger age. It’s not clear how much genetics account for this shared risk. It’s possible similar lifestyle or environmental factors play a role too.

Family heart history, especially maternal history, may be more important for women than men. The authors of the paper pointed out that the traditional risk factors for heart attack, such as high blood pressure, smoking and diabetes, don’t account for heart-attack risk as strongly in women as they do in men. Moreover, they wrote: “Women have higher case-fatality and are less aware than men of the risk carried by a family history.”

The study was published Tuesday in the journal Circulation: Cardiovascular Genetics. For more information on women and heart disease, go to the American Heart Assn.’s special website on the topic.

Related: Heart disease risk rises with time spent sitting

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