FATTY-ACID DIETARY-INTAKE AND THE RISK OF ISCHEMIC STROKE - A MULTICENTER CASE-CONTROL STUDY

A low dietary intake of unsaturated fatty acids has been found in male patients with stroke as compared with controls in Italy, and a high c onsumption of meat has been associated with an increased risk of strok e in Australia. We present a case-control study, comparing the unsatur ated and saturated fatty acids content of red cell membranes (which re flects the dietary intake of saturated and unsaturated fats) in 89 pat ients with ischaemic stroke and 89 controls matched for age and sex. I n univariate analysis, besides hypertension, atrial fibrillation, isch aemic changes in ECG and hypercholesterolaemia, stroke patients showed a lower level of oleic acid (P = 0.000), but a higher level of eicosa trienoic acid (P = 0.009). Conditional logistic regression (dependent variable: being a case) showed that the best model included atrial fib rillation, hypertension, oleic acid and eicosatrienoic acids. These re sults confirm a possible protective role of unsaturated fatty acids ag ainst vascular diseases; however, we did nor find any difference in th e content of omega3 acids, which have been considered in the past to p rotect against coronary heart disease. We conclude that the preceding diet of patients with ischaemic stroke may be poor in unsaturated fatt y acids (namely, oleic acid), and this defect is independent of other vascular risk factors. Only further studies will show whether changes in diet and/or supplement of unsaturated fatty acids might reduce the incidence of ischaemic stroke.