March 16, 2005 Fruit and vegetable intake are associated with a lower risk of ischaemic stroke, said study author Jing Ma, assistant professor of medicine, at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston. The scientists set out to investigate which antioxidants in fruits and vegetables might have this positive effect.
A study showing that high blood levels of carotenoids, a family of disease-beating antioxidants found in fruits and vegetables, might reduce the risk of the most common type of stroke, ischaemic. This study supports a diet high in fruits and vegetables to reduce ischaemic stroke risk.
The Physicians’ Health Study involved 22,071 US male doctors, 68 per cent of whom provided blood samples at the start of the study in 1982. Among the 15,000 who did not have cardiovascular disease at the beginning of the study, 297 had an ischaemic stroke during the study’s 13-year follow-up.
They analyzed blood samples from stroke patients and controls, to determine the concentration of antioxidants including carotenoids (alpha-carotene, beta-carotene, lycopene, lutein and beta-cryptoxanthin). They found that the men in the bottom 20 per cent of carotenoid levels based on alpha-carotene, beta-carotene and lycopene content had a 40 per cent higher risk of ischaemic stroke.
Once carotenoid concentrations rose above those in the bottom 20 per cent, progressively higher levels of carotenoids were not associated with increased protection. The findings are unclear as to whether these carotenoids give fruit and vegetables their protective effects or if they are markers of the protective effects of fruit and vegetable intake.
"The carotenoid level could have been the result of these men eating fruits and vegetables or taking antioxidant supplements. The observational study shows an association between fruit and vegetable intake and stroke risk, but did not prove that eating fruits and vegetables caused the lower risk," the researchers note.
Findings are published in the Stroke, a publication of the American Heart Association.
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