Research SquareNov 12, 2026, 08:24 GMT

Frailty patterns linked to stroke risk in Chinese women

Over three years, stroke incidence ranged from 2.7% in women with low, progressing frailty to 7.2% in those with high, stable frailty.

Paper by Heng Xu, Jiaping Lu, Qiulian Xu · Jinhua People’s Hospital

Figure 2. Association between frailty trajectory class and cardiovascular outcomes.Association between frailty trajectory class and cardiovascular outcomes.Xu et al.

Our read

Populations

Studied:: Preprint: cohort study of 4,954 people

Editor of record: Boris Djordjevic · AgingResearch.News

Paper

Among 4,954 Chinese women averaging 58.9 years old, a longitudinal cohort study linked patterns of accumulating health problems, or frailty, to later stroke. None reported a physician’s diagnosis of heart disease or stroke during 2011–2015. Researchers assessed frailty using 14 items covering daily activities, chronic conditions unrelated to the heart or blood vessels, and thinking tests. They grouped changes through 2015 into four patterns and tracked self-reported physician-diagnosed strokes from 2015 to 2018.

After accounting for age and other factors, rapidly progressing frailty had the strongest association with stroke. Its hazard ratio—a measure of relative risk—was 1.83 compared with low, progressing frailty. High, stable frailty was also associated with higher risk. The findings appeared in a preprint that has not been peer-reviewed.

Why it matters

Repeated assessments of accumulating health problems may help identify women at elevated stroke risk as they age, the authors suggest.

Caveats

Stroke outcomes relied on women reporting a physician’s diagnosis, and other health differences could have contributed to the association. The results concern Chinese women without reported heart disease or stroke through 2015, not men or people with those conditions.

From the paper

Participants

Among 4,954 women (mean age 58.9 years), four trajectories emerged: Low progressing (n = 2,349, 47.4%), Moderate stable (n = 2,201, 44.4%), High stable (n = 567, 11.4%), and Rapidly progressing (n = 937, 18.9%).

Results

Result

In fully adjusted models (reference: Low progressing), High stable was associated with higher stroke risk (HR 1.57, 95% CI: 1.05–2.37), and Rapidly progressing showed the strongest association (HR 1.83, 95% CI: 1.31–2.55).

Results

Quoted word for word from the full text on researchsquare.com.