MINNEAPOLIS – Eating a healthy plant-based diet that includes foods such as vegetables, whole grains and beans, and reducing levels of less healthy foods such as fortified grains or added sugar that could reduce your risk of stroke by up to 10%, according to a study published in March 10, 2021, an online journal of Neurology®, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology. The study found that a diet high in quality plant-based foods may reduce your risk of ischemic stroke.
Ischemic stroke is associated with obstruction of blood flow to the brain and is the most common type of stroke. The study found no link between diet and hemorrhagic stroke, which occurs when an artery in the brain leaks or ruptures.
“Many studies already show that eating a diet rich in fruits and vegetables can reduce your risk of all types of disease, from heart disease to diabetes,” said study author Megu Baden, MD, Ph.D., of Harvard TH School of Public Health, in Boston, Mass. “We wanted to find out if this type of healthy diet is linked to stroke risk.”
The study included 209,508 people who did not have cardiovascular disease or cancer at the start of the study. Researchers followed the participants for more than 25 years. Every two or four years, participants completed a questionnaire asking how often, on average, they ate more than 110 meals over the previous year.
The researchers divided the participants into five groups based on the quality of their diet, in particular, higher amounts of plant-based foods, without excluding all animal foods.
For example, people with the healthy plant-based diet such as leafy greens, fruits, whole grains, beans and vegetable oils had an average of 12 servings of plant-based healthy foods, compared to those with the lowest diets. quality, who were receiving an average of seven and a half servings a day. When it came to unhealthy plant-based foods, such as processed cereals and vegetables with high glycemic indices such as corn and potatoes, those with the healthiest diet had, on average, three servings per day compared to to six and a half distributions for those with the lowest quality diet. For meat and milk, the group with the healthiest diet averaged three and a half servings per day, compared with six servings per day for those with the lowest quality diet.
During the study, 6,241 people had strokes, including 3,015 who had ischemic strokes and 853 who had hemorrhagic strokes. The type of stroke was unknown to the rest of the population.
Compared to people who ate the few healthy plant-based foods, people who ate a stroke had a 10% lower risk.
When looking at the type of stroke, in contrast to people who ate the few healthy plant-based foods, people in the group who ate the most showed about 8% lower risk for ischemic stroke.
Researchers found no difference in risk for hemorrhagic stroke.
Also to say, researchers found no link between vegetable diet and stroke risk, although the number of cases was small.
“We believe these differences could be due to the differences in the quality of plant-based foods that humans would eat,” said Baden. less healthy plant-based, such as refined grains, added sugar and fat, as one example of how the quality of some so-called ‘healthy’ diet. Our decisions have a significant impact on the future of public health. Nutritional policies to reduce the risk of stroke should take into account food quality. “
The limitation of the study is that all participants were health professionals and were predominantly white, which means that the results may not be relevant to the general population. in general.
“While the nature of stroke was unknown in more than a third of people with a stroke, the consistency of decisions for lower risk of ischemic stroke and lower risk of total stroke in those with a stroke was unknown. eating a plant – based diet – and since before research has shown that ischemic stroke makes up about 85% of all strokes – these results are encouraging, “said Baden.
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The study was supported by the National Institutes of Health.
Learn more about stroke at BrainandLife.org, home of the American Academy of Neurology’s free patient and caregiver journal focusing on the intersection of neurologic disease and brain health. Follow Brain & Life® on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
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The American Academy of Neurology is the world’s largest association of neurologists and neuroscience professionals, with more than 36,000 members. The AAN is specifically designed to promote the highest quality, patient-centered neurologic care. A neurologist is a doctor with special training in diagnosing, treating and managing disorders of the brain and nervous system such as Alzheimer’s disease, stroke, migraine, multiple sclerosis, concussion, Parkinson’s disease and epilepsy.
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