TNF and Stroke: A positive correlation was observed between the TNF-α mRNA expression and death risk (r = 0.5381; p = 0.0018) (Fig 5E) and stroke risk (r = 0.5087; p < 0.0001) (Fig 5F); and a positive correlation was also observed between iNOS mRNA expression and death risk (r = 0.4850; p = 0.0049) (Fig 5G) and stroke risk (r = 0.5748; p < 0.0001) (Fig 5H).