BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE:

A systematic review of the prospective studies addressing the relationship of overweight and obesity to major stroke subtypes is lacking. We evaluated the occurrence of a graded association between overweight, obesity, and incidence of ischemic and hemorrhagic stroke by a meta-analysis of cohort studies.

METHODS:

A search of online databases and relevant reviews was performed. Inclusion criteria were original article in English, prospective study design, follow-up > or = 4 years, indication of number of subjects exposed, and number of events across body mass index categories. Crude unadjusted relative risk (RR) and 95% CI were calculated for each study for overweight or obese compared with normal-weight categories. Log-transformed values and SE were used to calculate the pooled RR with random effects models; publication bias was checked. Additional analyses were performed using the multivariate estimates of risk reported in the individual studies.

RESULTS:

Twenty-five studies were included, with 2 274 961 participants and 30 757 events. RR for ischemic stroke was 1.22 (95% CI, 1.05-1.41) for overweight and 1.64 (95% CI, 1.36-1.99) for obesity, whereas RR for hemorrhagic stroke was 1.01 (95% CI, 0.88-1.17) and 1.24 (95% CI, 0.99-1.54), respectively. Subgroup and meta-regression analyses ruled out gender, population average age, body mass index and blood pressure, year of recruitment, year of study publication, and length of follow-up as significant sources of heterogeneity. The additional analyses relying on the published multivariate estimates of risk provided qualitatively similar results.

CONCLUSIONS:

Overweight and obesity are associated with progressively increasing risk of ischemic stroke, at least in part, independently from age, lifestyle, and other cardiovascular risk factors.