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EDISON, N.J., July 3-Recording industry superstar, Luther Vandross, 54, died Friday, two years after suffering a stroke.

Vandross died at the John F. Kennedy Medical Center here. The hospital said in a statement that he "never fully recovered" from the effects of the stroke. Vandross had long fought obesity, with weight that fluctuated. He was hypertensive and suffered from diabetes.

Although largely out of the public eye since the stroke, Vandross recorded a final album and won four recording industry Grammy awards last year.

During a lengthy career, he won a total of eight Grammy awards and is remembered for his trademark silky crooning in a string of R&B hits, beginning with “Hear and Now” and ending with “Dance With My Father.”

African-American men have a significantly higher risk of stroke, and death caused by stroke, than white males, according to the American Stroke Association. In 2002, the latest year for which data are available, the stroke-mortality rate for black men was 82 per 100,000 population, while the stroke mortality for white men was 54 per 100,000. Likewise mortality is higher in black women, at 72 per 100,000 population, versus white women, who die from stroke at a rate of 53 per 100,000.

Black men and women generally have more stroke risk factors such as diabetes and hypertension, according to George Howard, Dr. P.H., who chairs the department of biostatistics at the University of Alabama at Birmingham School of Public Health. He is an authority on the demographics of stroke.

Two weeks ago, researchers in The Netherlands who studied 2,473 patients with minor ischemic stroke, or transient ischemic attack (TIA), reported that only 40% of stroke patients survive for 10 years after stroke, and even among long-term survivors more than half have a subsequent stroke or cardiovascular event during the 10 years following stroke.

The Dutch researchers, who reported their findings in The Lancet, reported that survival was best during the first three years following stroke. They suggested that the early survival benefit probably reflects secondary prevention measures such as daily aspirin and lifestyle changes including weight loss, exercise and smoking cessation.

The use of such preventive measures decreased as stroke became a distant event, they wrote.

In the Dutch study the predictors of death and the occurrence of a vascular event included age, diabetes and evidence of vascular disease. Age and sex-adjusted hazard ratios were 3.33 (2.97-3.73) for age over 65 years, 2.10 (1.79-2.48) for diabetes, 1.77 (1.45-2.15) for claudication, 1.94 (1.42-2.65) for previous peripheral vascular surgery, and 1.50 (1.31-1.71) for pathological Q waves on baseline electrocardiogram.

In a commentary that accompanied the Dutch study, Graeme J. Hankey M.D., of the University of Western Australia in Perth wrote that the take home message from the Dutch study is clearly that "patients with TIA and minor ischemic stroke should be repeatedly reassessed (because risks can change), treated to prevent cerebrovascular and cardiovascular events, and treated long-term."

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Related articles:

• Less than Half of Minor Stroke or TIA Patients Survive a Decade

• ADA: Tight Glucose Control Cuts MI and Stroke Risk in Type 1 Diabetes