Stroke is preventable by monitoring and controlling blood pressure, cholesterol, diabetes, not smoking, limiting alcohol and engaging in an exercise program.

After dropping in the early 2000s, the overall proportion of people in the U.S. who had survived a stroke rose by 7.8 percent from 2011 to 2022, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported in May. While strokes typically happen in older people, another CDC report from August found deaths from stroke among Americans aged 45-64 had increased 7 percent from 2013 to 2019—and then risen an additional 12 percent through 2021.

A new study in the Lancet Neurology reveals more people worldwide are surviving after a stroke, with no increases and even some decreases in strokes among adults over 70—but increases in strokes in younger adults, particularly those under 55.

“It’s important to know that stroke can happen at any age,” says Omoye Imoisili, an internal medicine doctor and the lead author of the May CDC study.