ASA: High Fat Intake Ups Stroke Risk in Older Women
Reported March 02, 2010
SAN ANTONIO — Postmenopausal women who eat the most fat have an elevated risk of ischemic stroke, researchers found.
Those who ate the most total fat — a median of 95 grams/day — were 44% more likely to have an ischemic stroke than those who ate the least — a median of 25 grams/day (HR 1.44, 95% CI 1.00 to 1.90, P=0.02 for trend), according to Sirin Yaemsiri, MSPH, a doctoral student at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Women who ate the most trans fat — a median of 7.5 grams/day — also had an elevated stroke risk (HR 1.30, 95% CI 1.00 to 1.70, P=0.03 for trend) compared with those who ate the least — a median of 1.3 grams/day, Yaemsiri reported at the American Stroke Association meeting here.
Yaemsiri said the findings support the American Heart Association recommendations to limit trans fat intake to less than 1% of total energy consumption.
Commenting on the study, Emil Matarese, MD, director of the stroke center at the Saint Mary Medical Center in Langhorne, Pa., said, “I think women now need to recognize that they have risk of stroke just like a man, and it may be too late if a woman waits until they’re menopausal to adjust their diet.”
“We need to start early at recognizing what are our risks and eliminating the excess fat, especially trans fat,” he added.
Younger women have a lower stroke risk than men of similar age, a relationship that reverses after menopause.
Previous studies have shown that fat intake is related to heart disease risk, but studies looking at the association between dietary fat and ischemic stroke have been inconsistent, Yaemsiri said.
To explore the issue, she and her colleagues analyzed data on 87,230 women ages 50 to 79 from the Women’s Health Initiative Observational Study. None had a history of stroke at baseline.
Dietary fat intake was determined at baseline using a food frequency questionnaire.
Through a mean follow-up of 7.6 years, there were 1,049 ischemic strokes — 101 atherosclerotic, 234 cardioembolic, 269 lacunar, and 445 unclassified.
Total fat and trans fat intake were associated with ischemic stroke risk after adjusting for numerous variables, including age, race, smoking status, physical activity, alcohol or aspirin use, body mass index, hormone therapy, heart disease history, income, diabetes, systolic blood pressure, use of antihypertensives or cholesterol-lowering medications, vitamin E supplementation, fruit and vegetable intake, total calories, and dietary fiber.
Specific saturated fat, monounsaturated fat, and polyunsaturated fat intake were not related to stroke risk.
Nor were there significant associations between fat intake and any of the specific ischemic stroke subtypes.
Yaemsiri said the analysis was limited by the use of self-reported dietary fat intake and low statistical power for analyzing associations with stroke subtypes.
Source : MedPage Today