Women who have a healthy diet and lifestyle can reduce their risk of stroke by more than half, Swedish researchers said last night.
The study, which was carried out at the Karolinska Institutet in Stockholm, examined the 5 factors that make up a healthy lifestyle: having healthy diet; moderate alcohol consumption; not smoking; being physically active; and healthy body mass index (BMI).
The researchers found that women with all 5 factors had a 54% lower risk of stroke compared with women who had none.
For the study, which is published in the new edition of Neurology, 31,696 Swedish women with an average age of about 60 completed a 350-item questionnaire about their diet and lifestyle and were followed for an average of 10 years.
A healthy diet was defined as being in the top 50% of a recommended food score, which measured how often the participants ate fruit, vegetables and low-fat dairy products.
Moderate alcohol consumption was defined as 3 to 9 drinks per week, while physically active was defined as walking or biking at least 40 minutes a day along with more vigorous exercise at least one hour per week. Healthy BMI was considered below 25.
Most of the women had 2 or 3 of the healthy factors. Only 589 women had all 5 healthy factors, and 1,535 had none.
There were 1,554 strokes among study participants and the researchers found that the risk of stroke steadily decreased with each additional healthy lifestyle factor.
Women who had a healthier diet were 13% less likely to have a cerebral infarction than those whose diet was not as healthy. Women with healthier diets had a rate of 28 strokes per 10,000 women per year compared to 43 strokes per 10,000 women per year among those with a less healthy diet.
Study author Dr Susannah C Larsson said: “Because the consequences of stroke are usually devastating and irreversible, prevention is of great importance.
“These results are exciting because they indicate that a healthy diet and lifestyle can substantially reduce the risk of stroke, and these are lifestyle choices that people can make or improve.”
There was no relationship between the healthy factors and the risk of hemorrhagic stroke.
Neurology 9 October 2014
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