Cocaine Ups 24-Hour Stroke Risk

Cocaine significantly increases the risk of stroke in young adults within 24 hours of use, according to a new study.

"We set out to understand what factors contribute to stroke risk in young adults," Yu-Ching Cheng, Ph.D., research scientist at Baltimore Veterans Affairs Medical Center and assistant professor of medicine at the University of Maryland School of Medicine, said in a news release. "These factors could be personal behaviors, medical or environmental factors, or genetic factors.

"Cocaine use is one of the risk factors we investigated and we were surprised at how strong an association there is between cocaine and stroke risk in young adults. We found the stroke risk associated with acute cocaine use is much higher than some other stroke risk factors, such as diabetes, high blood pressure and smoking."

The latest study involved 1,101 people between the ages of 15 and 49 who had strokes between 1991 and 2008 as well as 1,154 people of similar ages in the general population.

The findings revealed people were six to seven times more likely to suffer an ischemic stroke within 24 hours of cocaine use, and that the elevated stroke risk was similar in Caucasians and African-Americans.

"Cocaine is not only addictive, it can also lead to disability or death from stroke," Cheng said. "With few exceptions, we believe every young stroke patient should be screened for drug abuse at the time of hospital admission.

"Despite the strong stroke risk associated with acute cocaine use, in our study only about one-third of young stroke patients had toxicology screenings done during hospitalization. We think the percentage of cocaine use could be higher than we've reported."

The findings were presented at the American Stroke Association's International Stroke Conference 2014.