Healthy plant-based diet decreases stroke risk
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Among adults without CVD or cancer at baseline, those who ate healthful plant-based diets had an approximately 10% reduced risk for stroke, researchers reported.
“Many individuals have been increasing the amount of plant-based components in their diet,” Kathryn M. Rexrode, MD, MPH, chief of the division of women’s health at Brigham and Women's Hospital and associate professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School, said in a press release. “These results show that higher intake of healthy plant-based foods may help reduce long-term stroke risk, and that it is still important to pay attention to diet quality of plant-based diets.”
The researchers analyzed 73,890 women in the Nurses’ Health Study, 92,352 women in the Nurses’ Health Study II and 43,266 men in the Health Professionals Follow-Up Study without CVD and cancer.
Each participant was categorized based on their overall plant-based diet quality index, their healthful plant-based diet quality index and their unhealthful plant-based diet quality index. Healthy plant-based diets included foods such as leafy greens, whole grains and beans, whereas unhealthy plant-based diets included foods such as refined grains, potatoes and added sugars. Mean follow-up was approximately 25 years.
During the study period, there were 6,241 cases of stroke, including 3,015 ischemic strokes, the researchers reported.
In a pooled analysis, participants in the highest quintile of plant-based diet index scores had a lower stroke rate (HR = 0.94; 95% CI, 0.86-1.03) compared with those in the lowest quintile.
Participants with the highest healthful plant-based diet index scores had reduced risk for stroke (HR = 0.9; 95% CI, 0.83-0.98), whereas those with the highest unhealthful plant-based diet index scores had a slightly elevated risk for stroke (HR = 1.05; 95% CI, 0.96-1.15), according to the researchers.
Participants with the highest healthful plant-based diet index scores had reduced risk for ischemic stroke (HR = 0.92; 95% CI, 0.82-1.04), but there was no association between plant-based diet index and hemorrhagic stroke, the researchers wrote.
There was no difference between vegetarians and nonvegetarians in stroke risk, the researchers found.
Compared with those in the lowest quintile of plant-based diet index, those in the highest quintile had lower BMI, engaged in more physical activity, smoked less, had greater intake of healthy plant foods and less healthy plant foods and had lower intake of animal foods, according to the researchers.
“Our findings have important public health implications, suggesting that future nutrition policies to lower stroke risk should take the quality of food into consideration,” Megu Y. Baden, MD, PhD, postdoctoral fellow in the department of nutrition at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, said in the release.
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