A new study found that middle-aged Mexican-Americans faced double the risk of stroke compared with white people, with diabetes considered a major contributing factor.
Ischemic strokes are the most common and occur when an artery supplying blood to the brain is blocked.
The role of diabetes in the study is important because Mexican-Americans have a much higher rate of uncontrolled diabetes compared to whites, said Rajiv Patel, a medical student at Virginia Commonwealth University and lead author of the study. Statistics from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention show 18 percent of Mexican-American adults have diabetes, compared with 9.6 percent of white adults.
