Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what steps his Department is taking to reduce the number of strokes in young adults.

The prevention of stroke in young adults is not very different from the measures needed to prevent stroke in older adults. The most common causes are hypertension, diabetes, smoking, obesity, atrial fibrillation and other heart disease. There are some that are more common in younger people such arteriovenous malformations, aneurysms, cavernomas, patent foramen oval, antiphospholipid syndrome, recreational drug use and others. Most are rare and the indigence of stroke is low in people under the age of 40.

Public awareness that stroke can happen to children and young adults and the importance of adopting a healthy lifestyle is critical. The Stroke Association has run such educational campaigns. The diabetes prevention programme and publicity campaigns from Public Health England aimed at reducing vascular disease e.g. five a day, anti-smoking, will all have an impact on stroke as well as heart disease and peripheral vascular disease.

The Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health has recently published a comprehensive guideline on stroke (accredited by the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence) which has sections relating to prevention:

http://www.rcpch.ac.uk/stroke-guideline