NEW YORK (Reuters Health) -- People with a family history of brain aneurysms should put out their cigarettes and keep their blood pressure under control, New York researchers suggest.

Aneurysms are weakened bulging areas of blood vessels; a ruptured aneurysm in the brain may trigger a stroke. Brain aneurysms also appear to run in some families, but it is unclear exactly why some family members develop them while others do not. Now, results of a study of 24 families suggest that family members who smoke or have high blood pressure may exacerbate their risk of developing aneurysms. And, the risk appears to be higher among females than males. Dr. E. Sander Connolly, Jr. and his colleagues at Columbia University in New York City report the findings in the January issue of Neurosurgery. Connolly told Reuters Health that smoking, high blood pressure, and female sex are already considered risk factors for brain aneurysms in the general public. Each family in the current study had at least two siblings with brain aneurysms. The investigators found that family members with brain aneurysms were more likely to smoke than were their unaffected siblings--74%, versus 58%. The same trend was found for high blood pressure, with 43% of affected siblings having high blood pressure, compared with 28% of unaffected siblings. They were also more likely to smoke or have high blood pressure compared with a group of healthy individuals studied for comparison. Fifty-nine percent of the siblings with a brain aneurysm were female. ``If you're in one of these families and you smoke, you're more likely to have an aneurysm,'' Connolly said. While the same was true of high blood pressure, Connolly stressed that smoking was the greater of the two modifiable risks. ``Stop smoking, period,'' he advised. These findings also suggest that doctors may need to closely follow patients with a family history of brain aneurysms who do not have their blood pressure or smoking under control. Such patients would require screening with magnetic resonance imaging to detect unruptured aneurysms. ``And,'' Connolly said, ``we'd really want to pound the message to stop smoking.'' Connolly and his colleagues had previously found that kicking the smoking habit cut the risk of brain aneurysms in general. ``Basically,'' he explained, ``smoking is bad for your brain blood vessels.'' And brain aneurysms can form at an early age. ``Most people (who smoke) think, 'I'll die of something anyway,''' Connolly said. ``But what could happen is, you'll be a 36-year-old woman with a ruptured aneurysm who's paralyzed on her left side. That's really scary.''

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