Gene variant increases risk of stroke in women taking the pill

Women who are on the pill have an increased risk of a stroke. Researchers have recently found a gene that is partly responsible for this increased risk. Blood, a reputable journal in the field of haematology, will cover this shortly and as of mid-November, the article has been available on line.

The findings of this research project are the result of a productive co-operation between the Julius Center, the Department of Neurology of UMC Utrecht and the Department of Clinical Epidemiology of Leiden UMC. The project was headed up by Professor Ale Algra and the analyses were carried out by Martijn Pruissen as part of his PhD research project.

In the study, 190 women aged between 20-50 years who had had a stroke were compared with 767 women of the same age who had not had a stroke. The researchers determined the contribution of four genetic variations of coagulation factor XIII. One of them appears to be related to the occurrence of a stroke. Women with that variation of the coagulation gene are 9 times more prone to suffer a stroke than others. On average, in a population of 100.000 young women, strokes occur approximately 8.5 times a year.

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