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Following the nutri­tion-dense Mediterranean diet (MedDiet) may lower stroke risk, espe­cially in women. One of the largest and longest-run­ning stud­ies on the sub­ject found the eat­ing plan was linked to a 22 per­cent lower inci­dence in women over age 40. 

According to the researchers, strokes cause 6.34 mil­lion deaths world­wide every year. However, 90 per­cent of cases are pre­ventable with lifestyle mod­i­fi­ca­tions that include eat­ing a healthy diet. Instead of the pro­tec­tion com­ing from one indi­vid­ual food, it’s likely due to syn­er­gis­tic effects of com­po­nents in the entire diet, they said.

Key ele­ments of the MedDiet con­sist of gen­er­ous amounts of fruits, veg­eta­bles, olive oil, beans, whole grains, nuts, fish and pota­toes. The eat­ing plan also involves a lower con­sump­tion of dairy prod­ucts, sugar and meat.

Scientists from the Universities of Aberdeen, East Anglia and Cambridge worked together in the research. The par­tic­i­pants were 23,232 adults between the age of 40 and 77 who were enrolled in the EPIC-Norfolk study. For 17 years, the research team mon­i­tored the indi­vid­u­als’ diets and com­pared the stroke risk of those who adhered closely to the MedDiet with those who didn’t fol­low it as well.

Data showed the par­tic­i­pants who fol­lowed the MedDiet the most closely expe­ri­enced a decreased onset of stroke. The reduc­tion was 22 per­cent in women, 17 per­cent in all adults and 6 per­cent in men. Researchers noted that the smaller ben­e­fit in men could be due to chance, so it wasn’t con­sid­ered significant. 

“It is unclear why we found dif­fer­ences between women and men, but it could be that com­po­nents of the diet may influ­ence men dif­fer­ently than women,” said Ailsa Welch, lead author from the University of East Anglia, United Kingdom. ​“We are also aware that dif­fer­ent sub-types of stroke may dif­fer between gen­ders. Our study was too small to test for this, but both pos­si­bil­i­ties deserve fur­ther study in the future.” 

Moreover, par­tic­i­pants at a high risk of a car­dio­vas­cu­lar event who fol­lowed the MedDiet to any degree had a 13 per­cent reduc­tion in stroke risk. The advan­tage seemed to include adults at a low risk of a car­dio­vas­cu­lar event, although the pos­si­bil­ity that this was due to chance can’t be ruled out.

The researchers noted that while the find­ings were dri­ven by the appar­ent ben­e­fit in women, they have impli­ca­tions for stroke pre­ven­tion in both gen­ders. The study was pub­lished in the American Heart Association’s jour­nal Stroke.

In an inter­view with Olive Oil Times, bio­chemist Barry Sears, author of the Zone Diet book series, explained how the diet relates to the stroke risk protection. 

“Stroke pre­ven­tion is a con­se­quence of the reduc­tion of inflam­ma­tion that pro­duces clot for­ma­tion in the cere­bral cir­cu­la­tion, which causes ischemic stroke. It also is due to decreas­ing hyper­ten­sion that leads to a burst­ing of the cere­bral arter­ies sup­ply­ing cir­cu­la­tion to the brain, which causes hem­or­rhagic stroke,” he said. 

“A true MedDiet is an anti-inflam­ma­tory diet that reduces clot for­ma­tion and low­ers blood pressure.”

• Stroke


• American Heart Association