Study finds lack of health insurance may be associated with increased rates of stroke

BOSTON – The lack of health insurance prompts people to forego routine physical exams and have a reduced awareness of cardiovascular risk factors and is associated with increased rates of stroke and death, researchers have concluded.
A study in the April issue of the Journal of the Society of General Internal Medicine found people without health insurance are more likely to forego routine physical exams and had a higher risk of being unaware of a personal diagnosis of high blood pressure, diabetes or high cholesterol levels – all risk factors for cardiovascular disease. Surprisingly, researchers say, the lack of health insurance did not translate into a higher risk for myocardial infarction, of heart attack.
“We speculate that this may relate to the relative importance of hypertension as a risk factor for stroke, says Angela Fowler-Brown, MD, MPH, the lead author, a physician in the Division of General Medicine and Primary Care at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and an Instructor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School.
“Hypertension is the most powerful risk factor for stroke, and in our study we found that hypertension was significantly less likely to be well controlled in those lacking insurance,” she says. “While hypertension is also an important risk factor for myocardial infarction, other factors such as inflammation, cholesterol and inherited traits may of greater relative importance in the development of myocardial infarction than in stroke.