A healthy, plant-based diet could reduce your risk of stroke by up to 10%, researchers say.
This type of diet includes greater amounts of foods like vegetables, whole grains and beans, and fewer less-healthy foods like refined grains or added sugars.
“Many studies already show that eating a diet rich in fruits and vegetables can reduce your risk of all kinds of diseases, from heart disease to diabetes,” said study author Dr. Megu Baden, of Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, in Boston.
“We wanted to find out if there is an association between this kind of healthy diet and stroke risk,” Baden said.
The findings were published online March 10 in the journal Neurology.
The investigators looked at nearly 210,000 people who didn’t have heart disease or cancer at the outset. The participants were followed for more than 25 years, and they completed food questionnaires every two to four years.
