Fruit and vegetable diet may lower stroke risk in women

Washington - A diet rich in antioxidants, consisting mainly of fruits and vegetables, could significantly reduce the risk of heart attack in women, a new study has revealed.

Coronary heart disease is a major cause of death in women.

“Our study was the first to look at the effect of all dietary antioxidants in relation to myocardial infarction,” lead investigator Alicja Wolk, DrMedSci, Division of Nutritional Epidemiology, Institute of Environmental Medicine, Karolinska Institute, Stockholm, Sweden, said.

“Total antioxidant capacity measures in a single value all antioxidants present in diet and the synergistic effects between them,” she said.

The study followed 32,561 Swedish women aged 49-83 from September 1997 through December 2007.

The women completed a food-frequency questionnaire in which they were asked how often, on average, they consumed each type of food or beverage during the last year.

The investigators calculated estimates of total antioxidant capacity from a database that measures the oxygen radical absorption capacity (ORAC) of the most common foods in the United States (no equivalent database of Swedish foods exists).

The women were categorized into five groups of total antioxidant capacity of diet.

During the study, 1,114 women suffered a myocardial infarction.

Women in the group with the highest total antioxidant capacity had a 20 percent  lower risk, and they consumed almost 7 servings per day of fruit and vegetables, which was nearly 3 times more than the women with the least antioxidant capacity, who on average consumed 2.4 servings.

The findings has been published in the American Journal of Medicine.