Idiopathic intracranial hypertension is on the rise, a study finds

A new study has found that a brain stress disorder called idiopathic intracranial hypertension is on the rise, and the rise in obesity rates is on the rise. The study is published in the January 20, 2021, online journal of Neurology^®, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology. The study also found that socio-economic factors such as income, education and housing may play a role in the risks.

Idiopathic intracranial hip fracture is when the pressure in the arteries around the brain rises. It can recognize the symptoms of brain tumors, causing headaches, which are enabling, vision problems and in rare cases, vision loss. It is most commonly diagnosed in women of childbearing age. Treatment is often weight loss. In some cases, surgery may be needed.

The large increase in idiopathic intracranial hypertension we found may be due to many factors but may usually be due to rising obesity levels. What is even more surprising from our research is that women who are in poverty or other socioeconomic disadvantages that are independent of obesity may be at greater risk. “

William Owen Pickrell, Ph.D., MRCP, Study Author, Swansea University, Wales, United Kingdom and Member of the American Academy of Neurology

For the study, researchers used a national healthcare database in Wales to study 35 million years of patients over a 15-year period, between 2003 and 2017. They identified 1,765 people with idiopathic hypertension intracranial during that period. Of the group, 85% were women. Researchers recorded body index measurements for study participants. Body index is measured by dividing weight by height. For all those with the disorder, researchers compared three absentees that were matched for gender, age, and socioeconomic status.

The socio-economic status of each person with the disorder was determined by where they live, using a national scoring system that considers factors such as income, employment, health, education and access to services. People in the study were then divided into five groups ranging from those with the least socio-economic benefits to those with the most.

Overall, researchers found a sixfold increase in the number of cases of the disorder during the course of the study. In 2003, for every 100,000 people, there were 12 people living with the disorder, compared to 76 people in 2017. Also, in 2013, for every 100,000 people, two were diagnosed during that year, the compared to eight people in 2017.

The researchers found that the number of people living with the disorder corresponded to rising obesity rates in Wales during the study, with 29% of the population obese in 2003 compared to to 40% in 2017.

“Global obesity has almost tripled between 1975 and 2016, so while our research looked specifically at people in Wales, our findings may also be of global relevance, “Pickrell said.

There were strong links for both men and women between body index and risk of disorder. For women, there were 180 cases per 100,000 people during the study for those with a high body mass index compared with 13 women with a highly appropriate body index. For men, there were 21 cases per 100,000 among those with a large body index compared with eight cases for those with a large body index.

The researchers also found that socioeconomic factors were linked to risk for women-only. There were 452 women in the group with the least socioeconomic benefits compared with 197 in the group with the majority. The women in the group with the least degree of developing the disorder had a 1.5 times greater risk of developing the disorder than the women in the group with the majority, even after adjusting for body index.

“Of the five socioeconomic groups of our study participants, women in the bottom two groups made up more than half of the women who participated in the study,” Pickrell said. “More research is needed to find out what socio-economic factors such as diet, pollution, smoking or weight may play a part in increasing a woman’s risk of developing this disorder. . “

The limitation of the study was that researchers identified the socioeconomic status of the participants with the regions in which they lived instead of obtaining individual socioeconomic information for each participant.