{"id":7576,"date":"2026-07-02T07:59:23","date_gmt":"2026-07-02T07:59:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/africanamericanvoice.net\/?p=7576"},"modified":"2026-07-02T07:59:23","modified_gmt":"2026-07-02T07:59:23","slug":"stroke-is-the-3rd-leading-cause-of-death-for-women-so-where-are-they-in-the-clinical-trials","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/africanamericanvoice.net\/?p=7576","title":{"rendered":"Stroke Is the 3rd Leading Cause of Death for Women. So Where Are They in the Clinical Trials?"},"content":{"rendered":"

By<\/span>Sunita Sohrabji<\/a><\/p>\n

Stroke is the 4th leading cause of death in the overall U.S. population. But it is the 3rd leading cause of death for women, in whom stroke presents differently than it does in men.<\/p>\n

According to\u00a0data<\/a>\u00a0from the American Stroke Association, stroke kills 90,000 women each year. One out of 5 women over the age of 55 will suffer a stroke.<\/p>\n

Yet as women live longer than ever before, often spending a third of their lives after menopause, researchers are only now beginning to understand how aging, hormones and vascular disease interact to shape long-term brain health.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cIn every decade after 50, women are more likely to experience stroke compared to men, especially severe strokes. This significantly fuels the risk for cognitive impairment, and \u2014 eventually \u2014 dementia,\u201d said Dr. Farida Sohrabji, head of the Department of Neuroscience at Texas A&M University, where she is also Experimental Therapeutics Director of Women\u2019s Health in the neuroscience program.<\/p>\n

Misdiagnosis<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Women experience an average two-year delay in diagnosis across hundreds of medical conditions, said Dr. Liisa Galea, Treliving Family Chair in women\u2019s mental health at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health in Toronto, Canada, and lead of theWomen\u2019s Health Research Cluster<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cA two-year delay in diagnosis is a huge problem. Earlier interventions are most important for effective outcomes,\u201d she said, in an interview with American Community Media.<\/p>\n

Galea added that women who may have suffered a stroke are often misdiagnosed.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are still largely treating stroke as a male illness,\u201d said Galea. \u201cYou go to the emergency room and you\u2019re sent home. The doctor is saying: \u2018No, no, you\u2019re fine.\u2019 That\u2019s going to have more cascading issues for you.\u201d<\/p>\n

Black and Latina women suffer strokes at disproportionately higher rates than their white counterparts. The prevailing risk factor for Black women is hypertension. And the largest risk factor for Latina women is Type 2 diabetes, said Sohrabji, in an interview with ACoM.<\/p>\n

After menopause, all of these factors increase, especially hypertension, irrespective of ethnicity. But if you\u2019re starting from a higher baseline, that adds to it, she added.<\/p>\n

Black women experience stroke-related death at\u00a0higher rates<\/a>\u00a0than any other racial groups. Socioeconomic factors further compound those risks. Limited access to health care, delayed diagnoses, medication costs and barriers to healthy nutrition can increase the likelihood of stroke and complicate recovery, said Sohrabji.<\/p>\n

\u201cAll of those things contribute to your elevated risk.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2018Time is brain\u2019<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Because men experience strokes at a younger age than women, they are more at risk for having a second or even third stroke.Nearly one in four stroke survivors\u00a0will have another stroke in their lifetime<\/a>.<\/p>\n

But women tend to suffer strokes later in life, after menopause, when naturally occurring estrogen levels decline. Ovarian hormones like estrogen and progestins have been shown to be protective for cardiovascular risk and cerebrovascular risk, said Sohrabji.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are so many more severe strokes in older women,\u201d she continued. \u201cAt that time, they might be living on their own. They may have outlived their spouses. Then when they have a stroke, there\u2019s nobody that they can call because they have lost function,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWomen may lose consciousness, and may not have the wherewithal to make a phone call. And so treatment gets delayed. And when treatment gets delayed, the effects of the stroke just rocket on. You\u2019re losing more and more brain tissue.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rapid loss of neurons<\/strong><\/h2>\n

\u201cThe most common public service announcement is \u2018time is brain, because we lose neurons so quickly. And older women may suddenly find that they are not getting to care centers quickly enough,\u201d said Sohrabji.<\/p>\n

Most public health campaigns focus on classic stroke symptoms such as facial drooping, slurred speech and weakness on one side of the body. But women are more likely to experience symptoms that can be overlooked or misdiagnosed.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are subsets of people, many of whom are women, who will report symptoms such as migraine, pain from the jaw radiating upward, confusion and anxiety,\u201d said Sohrabji. \u201cThose symptoms will not get you diagnosed as an urgently stroke-needing individual.\u201d<\/p>\n

The seeds of decline<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Stroke acts like a seed for cognitive decline, Sohrabji explained, fueling the buildup of certain proteins in the brain \u2014 amyloid or tau accumulation \u2014 often associated with dementia. Even before dementia develops, however, many patients experience mild cognitive impairment, which can affect memory, judgment, decision-making and executive function.<\/p>\n

But caregivers should also watch for less obvious symptoms.<\/p>\n

\u201cPersonality changes should also be paid attention to,\u201d said Sohrabji. \u201cPeople often report the forgetting. But when a patient talks about changes in themselves, they\u2019re much more likely to talk about the depression.\u201d<\/p>\n

Loss of social engagement, withdrawal from previously enjoyable activities, anxiety, aggression and depression can all be warning signs of post-stroke cognitive decline. Women may also display more aggression, she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cCaregivers are in a very good position because they know what the baseline was, and they know what changes are occurring,\u201d said Sohrabji.<\/p>\n

The gender health divide<\/strong><\/h2>\n

In a\u00a0report<\/a>\u00a0released May 1, the World Economic Forum noted that men\u2019s health has been the default globally. Historically, medical research, clinical trials,\u00a0and healthcare products are designed around male biology.<\/p>\n

Women spend 25% of their lives in poor health, resulting in 75 million lost years of life globally. Addressing the health divide could boost the global economy by $1 trillion by 2040, noted the WEF.<\/p>\n

\u201cWomen\u2019s health research is severely undervalued and severely underfunded,\u201d said Galea.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere was a long-standing assumption \u2014 and I think it\u2019s still true to this day \u2014 that women don\u2019t really differ from men. We\u2019re just smaller in general, we weigh a little less, we\u2019re a little bit shorter in height. Outside of pregnancy, there\u2019s not really any difference between the genders. So why do we need to study women specifically when we can just use men and the data around men.\u201d<\/p>\n

But that ignores some very basic physiology, she stated. \u201cIn every single cell in our body and every single organ that we have, there are XX, XY, or X0, XXY chromosomes. So those sex chromosomes will affect the signaling within those different organs,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Women have more estrogen and men have more androgens. Those hormones have a \u201clock and key\u201d impact on receptors which impact every single organ in the body, explained Galea.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd so it shouldn\u2019t be super surprising that we\u2019re going to have different influences of our hormones on these different organs. But yet that\u2019s been largely ignored.\u201d<\/p>\n

Concerns around pregnancy also left women largely out of clinical trials.<\/p>\n

Federal initiatives<\/strong><\/h2>\n

In 1993, the\u00a0National Institutes of Health<\/a>\u00a0mandated that women and minorities must be included in clinical trials. However, there is no fixed percentage. The NIH requires that women be included in numbers proportionate to the prevalence of the condition under study in the general population. So, if a disease affects men and women equally, the participants must be 50% men and 50% women.<\/p>\n

But the NIH only funds about 15% of all clinical research, noted Galea.<\/p>\n

In 2024, former President Joe Biden signed a memo requesting $12 billion in funding for research focused on women\u2019s health. He also established the White House Initiative on Women\u2019s Health Research.<\/p>\n

\u201cNever before has there been such a comprehensive effort from the federal government to spur innovation in women\u2019s health research,\u201d said Carolyn Mazure, former chair of the initiative. \u201cThis is a huge opportunity for transformative change that can improve the health and the lives of women across this country.\u201d<\/p>\n

The initiative initially faced funding cuts when President Donald Trump took office, but was restored following public outcry.<\/p>\n

Stroke awareness<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Dr. Eliza Miller, a vascular neurologist who serves as the chief of Women\u2019s Neurology at the University of Pittsburgh, and as chief of Neurology, UPMC Magee-Womens Hospital, believes women need to be more aware of their risk for stroke.<\/p>\n

Traditional advocacy has focused mostly on older men. But women are presenting with stroke at a much younger age, including some in their reproductive years, Miller, an active volunteer with the American Heart Association\/American Stroke Association told ACoM.<\/p>\n

\u201cI have lots of young women in my clinic who have had strokes. They feel invisible: like nobody understands what they\u2019ve gone through. I had three patients this morning who were all just struggling with their post-stroke mental health: anxiety, depression, isolation, social anxiety, afraid to go to the grocery store,\u201d said Miller.<\/p>\n

Stigma<\/strong><\/h2>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s stigmatization of stroke and neurological disorders in general. People are embarrassed, especially if they have a disability,\u201d said Miller. Survivors with speech impairments or cognitive issues are especially embarrassed to discuss their challenges, she noted.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe AHA\/ASA has done a really good job in bringing survivors into the conversation and combatting the stigma surrounding stroke,\u201d said Miller. She likened it to initiatives empowering women to discuss breast cancer, also once a \u201chush-hush\u201d illness.<\/p>\n

Miller also advocated for gender-specific clinical trials. \u201cWe have to power the trial to look at men and women separately. And we in the research community are recognizing and pushing the idea that sex is not a covariant. You can\u2019t adjust away someone\u2019s sex. Instead you have to stratify by sex.\u201d<\/p>\n

The AHA\/ASA\u2019s\u00a0Research Goes Red<\/a>\u00a0is the largest women\u2019s health registry and platform, encouraging women to participate in clinical trials. More than 24,000 women are active participants on the platform.<\/p>\n

The organization\u2019s\u00a0Go Red for Women\u00a0<\/a>campaign informs women of their risk for stroke, and underlying conditions that contribute to the illness.<\/p>\n

Editor\u2019s note: Dr. Farida Sohrabji, a source quoted in this story, is the cousin of the reporter.<\/em>\u00a0This article was written with the support of a journalism fellowship from The Gerontological Society of America, The Journalists Network on Generations and The Silver Century Foundation.<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Source: Published without changes from American Community Media<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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