Approved research

Risk factors for intracerebral and subarachnoid haemorrhage in the general population

Lay summary

Haemorrhagic strokes include intracerebral (ICH) and subarachnoid haemorrhage (SAH). These stroke types are less common than ischaemic stroke, but associated with high mortality and high risk of severe disability. Both life-style and genetic factors influence the risk of ICH and SAH, but only few risk factors and risk variants are known. The aim is to investigate life-style related risk factors, biomarkers, and genetic variants for risk of both incident ICH and SAH, in order to identify new risk factors, and improve understanding of the pathophysiological mechanisms. Intracerebral and subarachnoid haemorrhage are clinically significant diseases and associated with high mortality and severe morbidity. The number of previous large prospective studies of ICH and SAH risk factors are few. Large cohorts are needed to prospectively study risk factors for these diseases. Increased knowledge about causal risk factors could improve risk prediction and prevention, and provide hypotheses to new preventive treatments. This could help lower the incidence of SAH and hence reduce mortality, suffering and health-related costs. We will investigate potential risk factors for ICH and SAH, including genetic variants, life-style related and traditional risk factors, (e.g. blood pressure, smoking, alcohol, diet, cholesterol), physical measures (anthropometrics, respiratory function, physical activity), comorbidities (e.g. diabetes, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease), and biomarkers related to diabetes, inflammation and renal disease. Mendelian randomisation will be used to establish potential causal associations between specific risk factors and ICH and SAH. A genome-wide study is planned for genetic variants and SAH. The full cohort is requested.