Plant-Based Diet Correlates With Reduced Stroke Risk

A study published in Neurology, showed a correlation between a diet high in quality plant-based foods and up to a 10% reduced risk of ischemic.

Compared with people who ate the fewest healthful plant-based foods, people who ate the most had a 10% lower risk of having a stroke. Participants in the quintile who ate the most plant-based foods had about an 8% lower risk for ischemic stroke compared with those who ate less. There was no difference found in risk for hemorrhagic stroke.
    
“Many studies already show that eating a diet rich in fruits and vegetables can reduce your risk of all kinds of diseases, from heart disease to diabetes,” said study author Megu Baden, MD, PhD, of the Harvard TH Chan School of Public Health, in Boston, MA. “We wanted to find out if there is an association between this kind of healthy diet and stroke risk.”
  
The study included 209,508 participants who did not have cardiovascular disease or cancer at the start of the study. The participants had follow-ups with the researchers for more than 25 years. Participants completed a questionnaire every 2 to 4 years about how often, on average, they ate more than 110 foods over the year. The participants were put into 5 groups based on the quality of their diet, specifically, higher amounts of plant-based foods. 
  
When it came to less healthy plant-based foods, such as refined grains and vegetables with high glycemic indexes like corn and potatoes, the people with the healthiest diet had, on average, 3 servings per day compared with 6 and a half servings for those with the lowest quality diets. As for meat and dairy, the group with the healthiest diet averaged 3 and a half servings per day, compared with 6 servings per day for those with the lowest quality diets. During the study, 6,241 (2.1%) of participants had a stroke, including 3,015 ischemic strokes and 853 hemorrhagic strokes. The type of stroke was not known for the other 2,373 cases.