Men who were overweight at puberty were at much greater risk of a life-threatening hemorrhage or clot in the brain years later. Compared to men who had a normal weight during puberty, the likelihood of a stroke in the obese was about 70% higher. This was not the case for men who entered puberty already overweight – if obesity was present before that and they were able to shed excess weight before entering their 20s, their risk of stroke did not increase. Swedish scientists from the University of Gothenburg are alarmed by these findings. According to their long-term studies in cardiac epidemiology, the incidence of moderate and severe strokes increases in young men, while it decreases in older men. Scientists still do not understand the exact reasons for this unexpected change, but they are firm in their observations – the change coincides perfectly with the beginning of the obesity epidemic. The study, led by Dr. Kingblom, included 37,669 Swedish men whose body mass index (BMI) was measured at age 8 and at age 20. After their 20th year, they were followed for an average of 38 years. During this period, 918 of the observed men had a stroke. NEWS_MORE_BOX Men who were normal weight at age 8 but obese at age 20 were also at increased risk of stroke. In this subgroup fall 1,800 of the 37,000 men examined – 67 of them suffered a stroke. Overweight men at both age 8 and 20 were at significantly increased risk – of the 990 people in this subcategory, 86 had a stroke. Of the 33,511 men of normal weight at both 8 and 20 years of age, stroke affected 759, or just over 2% of them. Dr. Kindblom said the study was entirely “observational” and did not aim to prove that obesity causes stroke, but to demonstrate the clear link between the two diseases: obesity definitely increases the risk of stroke.