Association of Prediabetes and Diabetes With Stroke Symptoms: The REasons for Geographic And Racial Differences in Stroke (REGARDS) study
Diabetes Care, 06/21/2012
Carson AP et al. - In this population-based study, almost one in four individuals with diabetes reported stroke symptoms, which suggests that screening for stroke symptoms in diabetes may be warranted.
Methods- This study included 25,696 individuals aged ≥45 years from the REasons for Geographic And Racial Differences in Stroke (REGARDS) Study who reported no history of stroke or transient ischemic attack at baseline (2003–2007).
- Glucose measurements, medication use, and self-reported physician diagnosis were used to categorize participants into diabetes, prediabetes, or normal glycemia groups.
- The presence of six stroke symptoms was assessed using a validated questionnaire.
- The prevalence of any stroke symptom was higher among participants with diabetes (22.7%) compared with those with prediabetes (15.6%) or normal glycemia (14.9%).
- In multivariable models, diabetes was associated with any stroke symptom (prevalence odds ratio [POR] 1.28 [95% CI 1.18–1.39]) and two or more stroke symptoms (1.26 [1.12–1.43]) compared with normal glycemia.
- In analyses of individual stroke symptoms, diabetes was associated with numbness (1.15 [1.03–1.29]), vision loss (1.52 [1.31–1.76]), half-vision loss (1.54 [1.30–1.84]), and lost ability to understand people (1.34 [1.12–1.61]) after multivariable adjustment.
- No association was present between prediabetes and stroke symptoms.
