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Fatty Diet Raises Stroke Risk After Menopause
The Associated Press, cbc.ca
February 25, 2010
Eating a lot of fat, especially the kind that's in cookies and pastries, can significantly raise the risk of stroke for women over 50, a large new U.S. study finds.
The new study is the largest to look at stroke risk in women and consider all types of fat. It showed a clear trend: those who ate the most fat had a 44 per cent higher risk of the most common type of stroke compared to those who ate the least amount of fat.
'It's a tremendous increase that is potentially avoidable.'— Dr. Emil Matarese
"It's a tremendous increase that is potentially avoidable," said Dr. Emil Matarese, stroke chief at St. Mary Medical Center in Langhorne, Pa. "What's bad for the heart is bad for the brain."
Matarese reviewed but did not help conduct the research, which was presented Wednesday at an American Stroke Association conference in San Antonio, Texas. The researched examined data on 87,230 participants in the Women's Health Initiative, a federally funded study best known for revealing health risks associated with hormone treatment for menopause symptoms.
Before the onset of menopause, women's risk of stroke has generally been lower than that for men of a similar age, although this is changing as women increasingly battle obesity and other health problems.
After menopause, the risk rises and the gender advantage disappears, said Dr. Ka He, a nutrition specialist from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill and senior author of the study.
He and another researcher, Sirin Yaemsiri, wanted to see whether dietary fat affected the odds.
Participants in the Women's Health Initiative who were between the age of 50 and 79 had filled out detailed surveys on their diets when they enrolled. For the stroke study, researchers put them into four groups based on how much fat they ate. They then examined how many had suffered a stroke seven years later caused by clogged blood vessels supplying the brain — the most common kind.
There were 288 strokes in the group of women who consumed the most fat each day (95 grams) versus 249 strokes in the group eating the least fat (25 grams), Yaemsiri told the conference.
After taking into account other factors that affect stroke risk — weight, race, smoking, exercise and use of alcohol, aspirin or hormone pills — researchers concluded that women who ate the most fat had a 44 per cent greater risk of stroke than the low-fat group.
Check food labels
They also found a 30 per cent greater risk of stroke among women eating the most trans fat, which is common in stick margarine, fried foods, crackers and cookies.
"We need to look at the labels on the foods we buy," because many of these fats are hidden in baked goods, and people are not aware of how much they're consuming, Matarese said.
"This is a simple way that any woman, especially post-menopausal women, can improve their health. Simply avoiding fried foods is a big one."
The American Heart Association recommends limiting fat to less than 25 to 35 per cent of total calories, and trans fat to less than one per cent. The healthiest fats come from nuts, seeds, fish and vegetable oils.
"We don't do a good enough job of emphasizing the importance of a good diet," said Dr. Lee Schwamm, a stroke specialist at Massachusetts General Hospital. Pediatricians in particular need to address the risk for chubby kids.
"If you don't change their patterns and problems in childhood, you're really looking at a lifetime of obesity," he said.
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