Have you ever heard someone say ‘Calm down before you give yourself a stroke’? A new study seems to indicate that, that may be more than just a throwaway line.

A stroke can be caused by one of two factors, cerebral infarction, which is generally known as ischaemic stroke or far less commonly by a brain tumor. A stroke is the third leading cause of death in the United States, with 143,579 falling victim to one each year. It is estimated that in 2008 795,000 people suffered a stroke in the US. Contrary to what some people may believe a stroke can affect persons of any age, with a quarter of the cases in the United States being reported in people under the age of 65.

The new study, which was led by Katarina Jood, who is a researcher at the Sahlgrenska Academy and a neurologist at Sahlgrenska University Hospital, set out to examine any link between stress levels and the incidence of stroke. Almost 600 patients at the Sahgrenska Hospital were asked to complete a medical survey within ten days of their admission to the facility after having suffered a stroke.

The survey asked patients to choose one of six “stress level scores” and pick the one that they felt best applied to them immediately before their stroke occurred. The scale went from “never been stressed’ all the way to “constantly stressed over the past five years”.  A control group of healthy participants were also posed the same questions.

According to Dr Jood they did indeed find a link “between self-perceived psychological stress and stroke. A new finding was that the link between stress and stroke varies between different types of cerebral infarction, “she said.

According to the study’s results stress levels seem to play a factor for those whose strokes had no determinable cause, even after in patient testing, and in those whose stroke had been caused by small blood clots in the brain. The same link was not established in those whose stroke had apparently been triggered by a blood clot developing in the heart.

The researchers do not understand why stress appears to play a bigger role in just certain types of strokes but they hope that their work will lead to further examinations of the role that stress plays in stroke development.

According to the CDC other risk factors for stroke include having high blood pressure and the regular use of cigarettes.

The study was published in the journal BMC Medicine