The vast majority of strokes can be traced to 10 common risk factors, a new study that included work from Canadian researchers has found.

The study compared risk factors among 3,000 people who had a stroke to those of 3,000 age- and sex-matched individuals who did not have a stroke between March, 2007 until April, 2010. They found that the following 10 main culprits accounted for 90 per cent of strokes:

• Smoking
• Hypertension
• Blood lipids
• Inactivity
• Abdominal obesity
• Poor diet
• Heart disease
• Diabetes
• Stress
• Alcohol

The researchers note that nine of these risk factors were also associated with heart attack.

"Targeted interventions that reduce blood pressure and smoking, and promote physical activity and a healthy diet, could substantially reduce the burden of stroke," says the study, published in The Lancet.

In an accompanying editorial, Dr Jack V Tu, of the Institute for Clinical Evaluative Sciences in Toronto notes taht while it's been well-known that high blood pressure is the most important cause of stroke in high-income countries, this study confirms that it is also the most important risk factor for stroke in developing countries.

"This finding is particularly relevant because it highlights the need for health authorities in these regions to develop strategies to screen the general population for high blood pressure and, if necessary, offer affordable treatment to reduce the burden of stroke. It also provides an impetus to develop population-wide strategies to reduce the salt content in the diet of individuals in these countries," he writes.

According to Statistics Canada, more than 14,000 Canadians died from strokes in 2005, which is the most recent statistics available. Many thousands more become disabled because of strokes.

Among the report's authors, two researchers from McMaster University in Hamilton led the study. The Canadian Institutes of Health Research, the Heart and Stroke Foundation of Canada, and the Canadian Stroke Network contributed funding.