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(Stroke. 2009;40:426.)
© 2009 American Heart Association, Inc.

Original Contributions

Association Between Recent Sports Activity, Sports Activity in Young Adulthood, and Stroke

Armin J. Grau, MD, PhD; Cordula Barth; Beate Geletneky; Paul Ling; Frederik Palm, MD; Christoph Lichy, MD; Heiko Becher, PhD Florian Buggle, MD

From the Department of Neurology (A.J.G., F.P., F.B.), Klinikum der Stadt Ludwigshafen am Rhein, Ludwigshafen am Rhein; and the Departments of Neurology (C.B., B.G., P.L., C.L.) and of Public Health and Tropical Hygiene (H.B.), University of Heidelberg, Heidelberg, Germany.

Correspondence to Armin J. Grau, MD, PhD, Department of Neurology, Klinikum der Stadt Ludwigshafen am Rhein, Bremserstrasse 67, 67063 Ludwigshafen am Rhein, Germany. E-mail graua{at}klilu.de

Background and Purpose— Leisure-time physical activity protects from stroke. It is insufficiently established whether early lifetime physical activity is independently protective and whether some etiologic stroke subgroups particularly benefit from physical activity. We tested the hypothesis that both recent and early-adulthood sports activities are associated with reduced odds of stroke and analyzed their effects in stroke subtypes.

Methods— We performed a case-control study of 370 patients with acute stroke or transient ischemic attack (TIA) and 370 age- and sex-matched control subjects randomly selected from the population and assessed recent and young adulthood sports activities and their weekly duration in standardized interviews.

Results— Recent regular sports activities were less often reported by patients (94/370, 25.4%) than by control subjects (162/370, 43.8%; P<0.0001). After adjustment for vascular risk factors, education, and other factors, recent participation in sports was significantly associated with reduced odds of stroke/TIA (odds ratio=0.64; 95% CI, 0.43 to 0.96). Both groups did not differ with regard to sports activities in young adulthood. More control subjects (69/365, 18.9%) than patients (25/361, 6.9%) participated in sports recently after not having been active in young adulthood, and such a pattern was associated with reduced odds of stroke/TIA in multivariable analysis (odds ratio=0.37; 95% CI, 0.21 to 0.85).

Conclusions— Our study supports previous results that have shown stroke protection by physical activity. Results suggest that continuous lifetime activity or starting activities during later adulthood is required to reduce stroke risk.

Key Words: stroke • physical activity • prevention • risk factor

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