Components of blood pressure and risk of atherothrombotic brain infarction: the Framingham study.

From a study of the evolution of atherothrombotic brain infarction (ABI) in the Framingham cohort of 5,209 men and women over 18 years of follow-up, it has been ascertained that hypertensionis the most common and most powerful precursor. Atherothrombotic brain infarction developed in hypertensive patients seven times more often than in normotensive patients, and the risk was proportional to the blood pressure throughout its range.