Common cold may temporarily increase stroke risk in kids

A new research has suggested that common cold infections are temporarily linked to increased stroke risk in vulnerable children.

Researchers at UCSF Benioff Children's Hospital San Francisco found that the risk of stroke was increased only within a three-day period between a child's visit to the doctor for signs of infection and having the stroke.

Senior author Heather Fullerton, MD, a pediatric vascular neurologist and medical director of the Pediatric Brain Center at UCSF Benioff Children's Hospital San Francisco, said that these findings suggested that infection had a powerful but short-lived effect on stroke risk.

Fullerton continued that they had seen this increase in stroke risk from infection in adults, but until now, an association had not been studied in children.

Fullerton added that the Infection prevention was the key for kids who were at risk for stroke, and they should make sure those kids were getting vaccinated against whatever infections such as flu.

The study observed that children who had strokes were 12 times more likely to have had an infection within the previous three days than the children without strokes. The total number of infections over a two-year period was not associated with increased stroke risk and about 80 percent of the minor infections identified by the researchers were upper respiratory.

The study was published in online issue of Neurology.