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Chronic Stress Boosts Stroke Risk In Young Women

Medically reviewed by Carmen Pope, BPharm. Last updated on March 6, 2025.

By Dennis Thompson HealthDay Reporter

THURSDAY, March 6, 2025 -- Chronic stress can increase young women’s risk of stroke, a new study says.

Moderate stress increases risk of stroke by 78% in women but not in men, researchers reported in the journal Neurology.

“More research is needed to understand why women who feel stressed, but not men, may have a higher risk of stroke,” said senior researcher Dr. Nicolas Martinez-Majander, a neurologist at Helsinki University Hospital in Finland.

“In addition, we need to further explore why the risk of stroke in women was higher for moderate stress than high stress,” Martinez-Majander added in a news release. “Knowing more about how stress plays a role could help us to create better ways to prevent these strokes.”

For the study, researchers examined health data for 426 Europeans between 18 to 49 who’d suffered a stroke with no known cause, and compared them to 426 healthy people who hadn’t suffered a stroke.

All participants completed a 10-question survey about their stress levels, and stroke patients were asked to recall the stress they’d faced in the month prior to their stroke.

The survey included questions like, “In the last month, how often have you felt that you were unable to control the important things in your life?”

Stroke patients were more likely to have at least moderate stress levels, researchers found. About 46% had moderate or high stress levels, compared to 33% of those who hadn’t suffered a stroke.

“Younger people often experience stress due to the demands and pressures associated with work, including long hours and job insecurity, as well as financial burdens,” Martinez-Majander said. “Previous research has shown that chronic stress can negatively affect physical and mental health.”

After adjusting for other factors that affect stroke risk, researchers found that moderate stress was associated with a 78% increased risk of stroke in women.

They did not find a link between stress and stroke in men, however.

“One potential explanation for the higher self-perceived stress in women could be related to societal and psychological factors, where women often report experiencing more chronic stress due to juggling multiple roles, such as work, family, and caregiving,” researchers speculated in their study.

“By contrast, men may show a stronger association with other risk factors, such as heavy alcohol consumption, which has been previously linked to an increased risk of stroke,” the study continued.

Men also are taught to under-report stress and “tough it out,” which might have affected the study’s bottom-line results, researchers concluded.

Disclaimer: Statistical data in medical articles provide general trends and do not pertain to individuals. Individual factors can vary greatly. Always seek personalized medical advice for individual healthcare decisions.

© 2025 HealthDay. All rights reserved.

Posted March 2025

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