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(Stroke. 2007;38:22.)
© 2007 American Heart Association, Inc.

Original Contributions

Relation of Adult Height With Stroke Mortality in Japan

NIPPON DATA80

Atsushi Hozawa, MD; Yoshitaka Murakami, PhD; Tomonori Okamura, MD; Takashi Kadowaki, MD; Koshi Nakamura, MD; Takehito Hayakawa, PhD; Yoshikuni Kita, PhD; Yasuyuki Nakamura, MD; Akira Okayama, MD; Hirotsugu Ueshima, MD The NIPPON DATA80 Research Group

From the Department of Health Science (A.H., Y.M., T.O., T.K., K.N., Y.K., H.U.), Shiga University of Medical Science, Shiga, Japan; the Department of Public Health (T.H.), Shimane University School of Medicine, Shimane, Japan; the Cardiovascular Epidemiology (Y.N.), Faculty of Home Economics, Kyoto Women’s University, Kyoto, Japan; and the Department of Preventive Cardiology (A.O.), National Cardiovascular Center, Osaka, Japan.

Correspondence to Atsushi Hozawa, MD, Department of Health Science, Shiga University of Medical Science, SetaTsukinowa-cho, Otsu, 520-2192, Shiga, Japan. E-mail ahozawa{at}belle.shiga-med.ac.jp

Background and Purpose— The age-adjusted stroke mortality rate in Japan was the highest in the world from 1950 to the 1970s, but it started to dramatically decrease after 1965. In addition to improved management of high blood pressure, the increase in average height might also contribute to this reduction. The present study investigates whether height is an independent risk for stroke mortality in Japan.

Methods— Among participants of the National Survey on Cardiovascular Diseases in 1980 who were randomly selected from the Japanese population, we followed up 3969 and 4955 Japanese men and women without prior cardiovascular disease for a maximum of 19 years and observed 158 and 132 stroke deaths.

Results— Height was inversely correlated with age and with crude stroke mortality. The relationship was attenuated in men when we adjusted for age or other possible confounders (multivariate adjusted relative hazards of a 5-cm increase of height for stroke mortality: 0.92, 95% CI: 0.79 to 1.08). For women, the inverse relationship (relative hazard: 0.77: 95% CI: 0.64 to 0.91) remained after multivariate adjustment. These relationships persisted when we stratified participants by age.

Conclusions— Height is inversely related to stroke mortality and the relationship is statistically significant among Japanese women.

Key Words: height • Japanese • mortality • prospective studies • stroke

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