Feb 20, 2014 03:06 PM EST By Jaleesa Baulkman, UniversityHerald Reporter

Iron deficiency may increase the risk of stroke by making blood sticky, according to a recent study HealthDay reported.

Scientists at Imperial College London in the United Kingdom found that low levels of iron could make blood "stickier" and more likely to clot, HealthDay reported.

For the study, researchers analyzed data from nearly 500 people being treated at a specialist HHT clinic at Hammersmith Hospital with a rare hereditary disease called haemorrhagic telangiectasia that often leads to enlarged blood vessels in the lungs.

They found that those who have an iron deficiency had stickier platelets, which are small blood cells that trigger clotting when they stick together. They also found that those with low iron levels were more likely to suffer a stroke, HealthDay reported.

"Since platelets in the blood stick together more if you are short of iron, we think this may explain why being short of iron can lead to strokes, though much more research will be needed to prove this link," Claire Shovlin of the National Heart and Lung Institute at Imperial College London said in a statement.

Researchers said the next step is to test whether treating iron deficiency will reduce high-risk patients' chances of having a stroke.

"There are many additional steps from a clot blocking a blood vessel to the final stroke developing, so it is still unclear just how important sticky platelets are to the overall process," Shovlin said. "We would certainly encourage more studies to investigate this link."

Every year, 15 million people worldwide suffer a stroke.  Nearly six million die and another five million are left permanently disabled. The most common type, ischaemic stroke, occurs because the blood supply to the brain is interrupted by small clots.

The findings were recently published in the journal PLOS ONE.

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