Drinking up to two glasses of wine per day may protect young women against the most common form of stroke, say researchers from the CDC in Atlanta.
Stroke is the third-leading cause of death in the U.S., after heart disease and cancer.
Md. The most common type is the ischemic stroke, in which blood flow in the brain is interrupted by a blood clot. The resulting damage to brain tissue can lead to paralysis, loss of speech, or mental incapacitation. Although the risk for stroke increases with age, young people suffer them, too. The CDC estimates that 100,000 American women under the age of 44 have had a stroke. In 1997, the most recent year government statistics are available, around 1,200 women under age 44 were killed by an ischemic stroke.