Diets High in Fat Raise Stroke Risk in Older Women

Sirin Yaemsiri, from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (North Carolina, USA), and colleagues analyzed data collected on 87,230 women, ages 50 to 79 years, enrolled in the Women’s Health Initiative Observational Study.  At the study’s start, none of the women had a history of stroke, and the women were followed for a mean period of 7.6 years.  The researchers found that those women who consumed the most total fat, a median of 95 grams/day, were 44% more likely to have an ischemic stroke (as compared to women who ate the least fat, at a median of 25 grams/day).  Further, the team found that those women who ate the most trans fat, at a median of 7.5 grams/day, were also at elevated stroke risk (as compared to women who ate the least trans fat, at median of 1.3 grams/day).