According to recent research, your place of birth could well influence your risk of a stroke death, decades later.

Apparently, there are 7-states in the south-east of USA that comprise the ‘Stroke Belt’, and being born in any one of these states increases a person’s likelihood of suffering a deadly stroke.

According to Dr. M. Maria Glymour from the Harvard School of Public Health in Boston, while stroke is much more common in elderly than young people, the roots of the disease go back to early life, and in order to understand and prevent strokes, an early start is recommended.

North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Tennessee, Arkansas, Mississippi, and Alabama comprise the Stroke Belt states, where death from strokes is higher than elsewhere in the USA.

Dr. Glymour and colleagues studied death records of US-born black and white men and women aged 30 to 80-years for the periods 1980, 1990 and 2000, in order find out how being born or living in the Stroke Belt, influenced the risk of death from strokes.

According to Glymour, whatever is going on in the Stroke Belt does not seem to be genetic, as it affects everyone from the white to the black, from the rich to the poor, and says the finding that being born in the Stroke Belt boosts the risk of death from stroke suggests the involvement of childhood influences.

For example, ‘social norms influencing dietary patterns in childhood, the quality of public resources such as the school system, stress pathways relating to community conflict, lifelong access to high quality preventive medical care, or physical risks associated with environmental conditions are plausible possibilities.’