Table 1.

Sex-specific unadjusted baseline characteristics for those who did or did not develop ischemic stroke; ARIC Study, Minneapolis field center, 1987–1989

	Men			Women
	incident stroke	no stroke	p value	incident stroke	no stroke	p value
Number	103	1,756		65	1,946
Age, years	57.7	54.4	<0.001	56.8	53.2	<0.001
Body mass index	27.9	27.8	0.74	27.1	26.3	0.23
Systolic blood pressure, mm Hg	125	120	0.002	126	117	<0.001
Diastolic blood pressure, mm Hg	77	75	0.11	74	72	0.17
Antihypertensive medication, %	33	21	0.005	37	23	0.008
Plasma total cholesterol, mg/dl	218	212	0.15	237	215	<0.001
Plasma HDL cholesterol, mg/dl	42	44	0.05	54	60	0.01
Plasma triglyceride1, mg/dl	138	117	0.01	123	98	<0.001
Diabetes, %	20	8	<0.001	18	6
Plasma creatinine, mg/dl	1.2	1.2	0.64	1.0	1.0	0.84
Sports index1 (range 1–5)	2.8	2.8	0.22	2.5	2.5	0.28
Education (>high school graduate), %	66	69	0.59	41	51	0.13
Current smoking, %	31	20	0.01	25	24	0.86
Cigarette-years1	320	320	0.63	68	26	0.16
Alcohol intake1, g/week	32.4	39.6	0.98	0.0	0.0	0.06
Total energy intake, kcal/day	1,738	1,805	0.26	1,505	1,486	0.77
Fish oil supplement use, %	2	3	0.60	3	3	0.83
Prevalence of coronary heart disease, %	14	8	0.03	2	1	0.73
Hormone therapy use, %	–	–	–	20	23	0.69

¹Median values.