Intrinsic capacity and stroke risk in a multiple cohort study

Intrinsic capacity is a concept established by the World Health Organization (WHO). The concept aims to represent the total of a person's physical and mental abilities, measured across five domains: cognition, psychological, sensory, vitality, and locomotor that were identified as crucial for healthy aging. The aim being to shift focus from disease to function to predict health, disability, and frailty. In this large-scale cohort study, we aim to investigate the association between intrinsic capacity and incident stroke. The study includes 184,219 participants aged 40 years or older. Intrinsic capacity is assessed across five domains according to the WHO Integrated Care for Older People framework. We use Cox proportional hazards regression models to examine this association and perform stratified and sensitivity analyses to evaluate domain-specific contributions and robustness. Here we show that both overall intrinsic capacity and each of its five domains are significantly associated with stroke incidence, with the strongest association observed among adults aged 80 years or older. These findings highlight intrinsic capacity as a promising, multidimensional target for primary stroke prevention in an aging population.