Brain bleeding cases reduced as more people stop smoking

Scientists see a link between a type of brain bleeding that leads to stroke and the decreasing number of smokers.

The type of brain bleeding that causes the most lethal kind of stroke has declined substantially since 1998, possibly as a result of falling smoking rates, according to researchers in Finland.

Bleeding in the space between the brain and the thin tissue covering it, known as subarachnoid hemorrhage, affects fewer than 200,000 people in the U.S. each year and represents about 10 percent of all strokes.