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Category: healthy aging

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The last few years have been brutal for those unemployed and having trouble finding employment. Some recent studies highlight how devastating being laid off and unemployed is to one's mental and physical health.

From Science Daily: Stress markers in unemployed linked to poor health

It appears that stress markers in unemployed people can be found, independent of smoking, alcohol consumption and overweight/obesity. Results from a study suggest that long-term unemployment may be especially damaging to health. Authors also note that older job seekers appear more affected than younger counterparts.

Research from the ESRC International Centre for Lifecourse Studies at UCL suggests direct biological effects of stress during unemployment may help explain the increased mortality and morbidity among job seekers. The study used biological signatures in blood samples called inflammatory markers, which are influenced by stress and are clinically important because mildly raised levels predict atherosclerosis (narrowing of the arteries due to fatty deposits) and heart disease.

From Medical Xpress: One in five suicides is associated with unemployment

Every year, around 45,000 people take their own lives because they are out of work or someone close to them is affected by unemployment, as a study by the University of Zurich now reveals. It includes data of 63 countries and demonstrates that during the 2008 economic crisis the number of all suicides associated with unemployment was nine times higher than previously believed.

Unemployment can drive people to suicide. Numerous studies have demonstrated that there is a relationship between unemploymentand poor health and that (the threat of) losing a job and prolonged unemployment can constitute a serious situation for those affected as well as their relatives...Every year, around one in five suicides is associated with unemployment," says first author Carlos Nordt.

Every year, almost a million people die by suicide worldwide. In order to find out how many suicides are associated with unemployment, the UZH researchers included data from 63 countries between 2000 and 2011 in their study. The countries were divided into four regions: North and South America, northern and western Europe, southern and eastern Europe, and Non-Americas and non-Europe. No data was available from China or India. "Despite country-specific particularities, we found a similarly strong association between unemployment and suicide rates in all four regions," summarises sociologist Nordt. Moreover, a changing unemployment rate affected both sex as well as different age groups equally.

From Medical Xpress: Unemployment changes your core personality, according to study

The psychological damage caused by unemployment is greater than previously thought, according to a study led by researchers at the University of Stirling. Stirling's behavioural scientists have found that unemployment, well-known to cause substantial drops in personal well being, can also cause large changes to a person's core personality.

Personality is typically considered stable across time but the researchers found that the experience of unemployment led to reduced levels of conscientiousness, agreeableness, and openness; signifying that individuals lose motivation, become less considerate and sympathetic, and less curious about the world around them. These changes were greater the longer an individual spent unemployed.

Lead researcher Dr Christopher Boyce, from the University of Stirling's Behavioural Science Centre, said: "The results challenge the idea that our personalities are 'fixed' and show that the effects of external factors such as unemployment can have large impacts on our basic personality."

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A large study found that eating nuts or peanuts several times a week is associated with lower death rates, especially from cardiovascular disease. Note that a serving is a small handful or 1.5 ounces of whole nuts or 2 tablespoons of nut butter.

From Science Daily: Peanut consumption associated with decreased total mortality and mortality from cardiovascular diseases

If you're looking for a simple way to lower your risk of dying from a heart attack, consider going nuts. Researchers at Vanderbilt University and the Shanghai Cancer Institute examined the association of peanut and nut consumption with mortality among low-income and racially diverse populations and found that intake of peanuts was associated with fewer deaths, especially from heart disease.

"Nuts are rich in nutrients, such as unsaturated fatty acids, fiber, vitamins, phenolic antioxidants, arginine and other phytochemicals. All of them are known to be beneficial to cardiovascular health, probably through their anti-oxidative, anti-inflammatory and endothelial function maintenance properties," Shu said.

While research has previously linked nut consumption with lower mortality, those studies focused mainly on higher-income, white populations. This study was the first to discover that all races -- blacks, whites and Asians alike -- could potentially increase heart health by eating nuts and peanuts.

This study was based on three large ongoing cohort studies. Participants included more than 70,000 Americans of African and European descent from the Southern Community Cohort Study (SCCS), who were mostly low-income, and more than 130,000 Chinese from the Shanghai Women's Health Study (SWHS) and the Shanghai Men's Health Study (SMHS).... In total, more than 14,000 deaths were identified, with a median follow-up of 5.4 years in the SCCS, 6.5 years in the SMHS, and 12.2 years in the SWHS.

Peanut consumption was associated with decreased total mortality, particularly cardiovascular mortality (i.e., 17-21 percent reduction in total mortality, and 23-38 percent reduction in cardiovascular mortality for the highest quartile intake group compared to the lowest quartile group) across all three racial/ethnic groups, among both men and women, and among individuals from low-SES groups.

The American Heart Association recommends eating four servings of unsalted, unoiled nuts a week. However, nutrient-rich nuts are also high in calories, so don't eat too many if you're watching your weight. A serving size is a small handful or 1.5 ounces of whole nuts or 2 tablespoons of nut butter.

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A variation of this study - intermittent fasting (one day eat normally, then have a low-calorie day, repeat) has shown to result in health benefits and weight loss. But both versions show that having some low calorie days are beneficial to health. And once again, antioxidants do not have any health benefits. From Science Daily:

Feast-and-famine diet could help extend life, study suggests

University of Florida Health researchers have found that putting people on a feast-or-famine diet may mimic some of the benefits of fasting, and that adding antioxidant supplements may counteract those benefits.

Fasting has been shown in mice to extend lifespan and to improve age-related diseases. But fasting every day, which could entail skipping meals or simply reducing overall caloric intake, can be hard to maintain..."We started thinking about the concept of intermittent fasting.”

Michael Guo, a UF M.D.-Ph.D. student who is pursuing the Ph.D. portion of the program in genetics at Harvard Medical School, said the group measured the participants’ changes in weight, blood pressure, heart rate, glucose levels, cholesterol, markers of inflammation and genes involved in protective cell responses over 10 weeks.“We found that intermittent fasting caused a slight increase to SIRT 3, a well-known gene that promotes longevity and is involved in protective cell responses,” Guo said.

The SIRT3 gene encodes a protein also called SIRT3. The protein SIRT3 belongs to a class of proteins called sirtuins. Sirtuins, if increased in mice, can extend their lifespans, Guo said. Researchers think proteins such as SIRT3 are activated by oxidative stress, which is triggered when there are more free radicals produced in the body than the body can neutralize with antioxidants. However, small levels of free radicals can be beneficial: When the body undergoes stress -- which happens during fasting -- small levels of oxidative stress can trigger protective pathways, Guo said. “The hypothesis is that if the body is intermittently exposed to low levels of oxidative stress, it can build a better response to it,” Wegman said.

The researchers found that the intermittent fasting decreased insulin levels in the participants, which means the diet could have an anti-diabetic effect as well.

The group recruited 24 study participants in the double-blinded, randomized clinical trial. During a three-week period, the participants alternated one day of eating 25 percent of their daily caloric intake with one day of eating 175 percent of their daily caloric intake. For the average man’s diet, a male participant would have eaten 650 calories on the fasting days and 4,550 calories on the feasting days. To test antioxidant supplements, the participants repeated the diet but also included vitamin C and vitamin E.

At the end of the three weeks, the researchers tested the same health parameters. They found that the beneficial sirtuin proteins such as SIRT 3 and another, SIRT1, tended to increase as a result of the diet. However, when antioxidants were supplemented on top of the diet, some of these increases disappeared. This is in line with some research that indicates flooding the system with supplemental antioxidants may counteract the effects of fasting or exercise, said Christiaan Leeuwenburgh, Ph.D., co-author of the paper and chief of the division of biology of aging in the department of aging and geriatric research.“You need some pain, some inflammation, some oxidative stress for some regeneration or repair,” Leeuwenburgh said. 

On the study participants’ fasting days, they ate foods such as roast beef and gravy, mashed potatoes, Oreo cookies and orange sherbet -- but they ate only one meal. On the feasting days, the participants ate bagels with cream cheese, oatmeal sweetened with honey and raisins, turkey sandwiches, apple sauce, spaghetti with chicken, yogurt and soda -- and lemon pound cake, Snickers bars and vanilla ice cream.

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This article raises serious questions about the recently published American College of Cardiology and American Heart Association calculators to predict future cardiovascular events (heart attack, strike, etc) which then give recommendations for who needs to take daily statins while they are still healthy. This calculator (ACC/AHA risk calculator) has sparked much debate because many experts believe it overestimates risk. Now a study that looked at untreated people (MESA) showed that the calculator (as well as 3 other calculators) seriously overpredict the chance of a future cardiovascular event. In other words, many, many healthy people told they "may" have a chance of an event in the future are actually not at risk and so statins would not help them, but may harm them. Remember, all medicines have side-effects. Written by cardiac electrophysiologist Dr. John Mandrola (who has his own blog-site www,drjohnm.org) . From Medscape:

Statins in Primary Prevention: Welcome to the Gray Zone

A new study published in the Annals of Internal Medicine confirmed something that ought to be obvious: predicting the future is hard—especially when it comes to cardiovascular events.

We know cardiovascular disease is the number-one killer of humans; we know its first manifestation is often heart attack, stroke, or death; and we know all medical therapy comes with trade-offs. Medical treatment of healthy people in the name of preventing something that may or may not happen in the future is dicey. Think do no harm. That is where risk prediction comes in. You have to know the odds of something (or nothing) happening without treatment. The gamble of statins and aspirin, for instance, looks most favorable in patients who are most likely to have an event.

 But where to draw that line, at what future risk is it worth taking a chemical, is the issue at hand. The extreme cases are easy. Most everyone agrees that statins and aspirin provide enough benefit in patients who have suffered a cardiovascular event. For secondary prevention, future risk is high, so benefits outweigh harms. It's the opposite in very low-risk patients. The middle ground is not so easy.

Here is where we have to consider the tools—calculators—to predict future risk. We know certain conditions, such as age, gender, blood pressure, diabetes, smoking, biomarkers, family history, and coronary calcium, contribute to future risk. Numerous expert panels, including the American College of Cardiology and American Heart Association, have compiled different calculators to predict the future. The ACC/AHA risk calculator for atherosclerotic CVD (ASCVD) has sparked debate because many experts believe it overestimates risk.

Dr Andrew DeFillippis (University of Louisville, KY) and a team of Multi-Ethnic Study of Atherosclerosis (MESA) coinvestigators used this community-based, sex-balanced, multiethnic cohort to compare the calibration and discrimination of the new ASCVD risk score with alternative risk scores.They compared the observed and expected events for the ASCVD score with three Framingham-based scores and the Reynolds risk score in 4227 MESA subjects aged 50 to 74 years over a 10-year follow-up. Using this real-world population, they found four of the five risk scores overestimated risk. Calibration was worse in men: overestimates ranged from 37% to 154%. In women, three of four scores overestimated risk by 46% to 67%, and the Reynolds Risk score underestimated risk by 21%. 

It's worth saying this another way: when the ACC/AHA ASCVD score predicted event rates of 7.5 to 10%—a range deemed above the statin-benefit cutoff—the actual events were just 3%.

Speaking by phone (we live in the same city), lead author Dr DeFillippis explained to me the important business of looking only at untreated patients. He described their sensitivity analysis, which excluded all patients who received aspirin or any lipid-lowering or antihypertensive drug. To lessen the chance of bias, they analyzed this drug-free group of 790 patients separately and found the same overprediction.The authors concluded that if these findings are validated, overestimation of ASCVD risk may have substantial implications for individual patients and the healthcare system.

On that modern theme, Dr DeFillippis made an interesting point to me about the overall best-performing Reynolds Risk score. He noted the Reynolds score uses genetics (family history) and CRP (inflammation) levels to predict the future. Bookmark that for the future—genetics and inflammation, that is.

These findings have major implications. Drugs are not free. Aspirin and statins come with side effects and dollar costs. The patient who takes these drugs in hopes of preventing future events makes the gamble that the costs are worth the benefit. Policy makers who recommend these drugs expose millions of people to a therapy that turns on delicate balance between future benefit and harm.

The final point to make is that the use of statins and other drugs for the prevention of future events is not a doctor's or professional society's decision. The human being who swallows a drug must ultimately decide whether the gamble is favorable.

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I am starting to read more and more negative comments from physicians and researchers about the big pharma and medical society recommendations for treating currently healthy people with statins in the hope it may prevent a cardiovascular event in the future. Many point out that statin health benefits are overstated while negatives and side-effects have been minimized. Many are pointing out that instead of statins, there should be recommendations for lifestyle changes, such as reducing weight, increasing exercise, not smoking, reducing stress, and cutting back on alcohol consumption. After all, these lifestyle changes ONLY have positive effects, and zero negative side effects. From Medical Xpress:

Safety and life-saving efficacy of statins have been exaggerated, says USF scientist

Hailed as miracle drugs when they hit the market two decades ago, statins, the cholesterol-lowering drugs prescribed to prevent heart attacks, are not as effective nor as safe as we have been led to believe, say Dr. David M. Diamond, a professor of psychology, molecular pharmacology and physiology at the University of South Florida, and Dr. Uffe Ravnskov, an independent health researcher and an expert in cholesterol and cardiovascular disease.

According to Diamond and Ravnskov, statins produce a dramatic reduction in cholesterol levels, but they have "failed to substantially improve cardiovascular outcomes." They further state that the many studies touting the efficacy of statins have not only neglected to account for the numerous serious adverse side effects of the drugs, but supporters of statins have used what the authors refer to as "statistical deception" to make inflated claims about their effectiveness.

Their paper is an analysis of the data in the statin trials which led them to conclude that "statin advocates have used statistical deception to create the illusion that statins are 'wonder drugs,' when the reality is that their modest benefits are more than offset by their adverse effects."

The paper also describes how the basis of the deception is in how authors of the statin studies present the rate of beneficial and adverse effects. The effect of the drugs on the population is called the 'absolute risk,' which has shown that statins benefit only about 1% of the population. This means that only one out of 100 people treated with a statin will have one less heart attack. Statin researchers, however, don't present the 1% effect to the public. Instead they transform the 1% effect using another statistic, called the "relative risk," which creates the appearance that statins benefit 30-50% of the population. The exaggeration of beneficial effects of statin treatment was illustrated in their analysis of a subset of statin studies, including the Jupiter Trial (Crestor), the Anglo-Scandinavian Cardiac Outcomes Trial Lipid Lowering Arm (ASCOT-LLA), and the British Heart Protection Study.

"In the Jupiter trial, the public and healthcare workers were informed of a 54 percent reduction in heart attacks, when the actual effect in reduction of coronary events was less than 1 percentage point," said Ravnskov and Diamond.... there were heart attacks and deaths in 3% of the placebo (no treatment) group as compared to 1.9% in the Lipitor group. The improvement in outcome with Lipitor treatment was only 1.1 percentage point, but when this study was presented to the public, the advertisements used the inflated (relative risk) statistic, which transformed the 1.1% effect into a 36% reduction in heart attack risk.

The adverse effects suffered by people taking statins are more common than reported in the media and at medical conferences" explains Diamond and Ravnskov. According to the authors, "Increased rates of cancer, cataracts, diabetes, cognitive impairments and musculoskeletal disorders more than offset the modest cardiovascular benefits of statin treatment."

The authors emphasized that low cholesterol levels related to statin use have frequently been associated with an increased risk of cancer. They also noted that most statin trials are terminated within two to five years, a period too short to see most cancers develop. Nevertheless, studies have shown a greater incidence of cancer in people who take statins, and one long-term study demonstrated a dramatic increase in the incidence of breast cancer among women who had used statins for more than 10 years.

They emphasized that the public needs to be wary of conflicts of interest in the medical community and pharmaceutical industry when it comes to touting the benefits of statins and skewing the data in such a way as to make the drugs seem more effective at lowering cardiovascular disease and heart attack risks than they may actually be.

The authors advocate other health beneficial strategies that are known to reduce cardiovascular risk, such as cessation of smoking, weight control, exercise and stress reduction. They also emphasized the great value of a low carbohydrate diet for normalizing all of the biomarkers of cardiovascular risk, with excellent outcomes, especially for people with type 2 diabetes.

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Once again "conventional medical wisdom" is shown to be wrong. My big question - why has it taken so long to find out what is NORMAL for women?  From NY Times:

Up to 14 Years of Hot Flashes Found in Menopause Study

Conventional wisdom has it that hot flashes, which afflict up to 80 percent of middle-aged women, usually persist for just a few years. But hot flashes can continue for as long as 14 years, and the earlier they begin the longer a woman is likely to suffer, a study published on Monday in JAMA Internal Medicine found.

In a racially, ethnically and geographically diverse group of 1,449 women with frequent hot flashes or night sweats — the largest study to date — the median length of time women endured symptoms was 7.4 years. So while half of the women were affected for less than that time, half had symptoms longer — some for 14 years, researchers reported.

Over all, black and Hispanic women experienced hot flashes for significantly longer periods than white or Asian women. And in a particularly unfair hormonal twist, the researchers found that the earlier hot flashes started, the longer they were likely to continue. Among women who got hot flashes before they stopped menstruating, the hot flashes were likely to continue for years after menopause, longer than for women whose symptoms began only when their periods had stopped.

In this study, only a fifth of cases started after menopause. One in eight women began getting hot flashes while still having regular periods. For two-thirds of women, they began in perimenopause, when periods play hide and seek but have not completely disappeared.

In numerical terms, women who started getting hot flashes when they were still having regular periods or were in early perimenopause experienced symptoms for a median of 11.8 years. About nine of those years occurred after menopause, nearly three times the median of 3.4 years for women whose hot flashes did not start until their periods stopped. Hot flashes, which can seize women many times a day and night — slathering them in sweat, flushing their faces — are linked to drops in estrogen and appear to be regulated by the hypothalamus in the brain.

Researchers found significant differences between ethnic groups. African-Americans reported the longest-lasting symptoms, continuing for a median of 10.1 years — twice the median duration of Asian women’s symptoms. The median for Hispanic women was 8.9 years; for non-Hispanic whites, 6.5 years. Reasons for ethnic differences are unclear. “It could be genetic, diet, reproductive factors, how many children women have,” Dr. Avis said.The study also found that women with longer-lasting symptoms tended to have less education, greater perceived stress, and more depression and anxiety.

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Some weekly strenuous activity is best for women's health. From Science Daily:

Women active a few times weekly have lower risk of heart disease, stroke and blood clots

Middle-aged women physically active a few times per week have lower risks of heart disease, stroke and blood clots than inactive women. More frequent physical activity does not appear to lower the risks further, research shows.

In the study: - Women who performed strenuous physical activity -- enough to cause sweating or a faster heart beat -- two to three times per week were about 20 percent less likely to develop heart disease, strokes or blood clots compared to participants who reported little or no activity. - Among active women, there was little evidence of further risk reductions with more frequent activity. - Physical activities associated with reduced risk included walking, gardening, and cycling.

Participants included 1.1 million women in the United Kingdom with no history of cancer, heart disease, stroke, blood clots, or diabetes who joined the Million Women study in 1996-2001. Their average age when they joined the study was 56. The women reported their level of physical activity at the beginning of the study and three years later. Researchers then examined hospital admissions and deaths in relation to participants' responses. Follow-up was, on average, nine years.

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Nice summary of cancer prevention advice. What it boils down to is that there is no magic bullet for cancer prevention (maybe the closest thing is to NOT smoke), but it's a lot of little things adding up (your lifestyle) that lowers the risk of cancer. From The Washington Post:

Looking for that fruit or vegetable that might prevent cancer?

Blueberries. Green tea. Tomatoes. And, oh, that cruciferous cauliflower. All make the lists of super foods that might help prevent cancer. Then there are the foods such as smoked meat and fried foods that supposedly might cause cancer. Such information is standard fare for TV doctors and Web sites, but most of us don’t know how to judge such claims. What sounds authoritative may not be. Only about half of the recommendations on two internationally syndicated TV medical talk shows were supported by scientific evidence, according to a recent study in the journal BMJ.

Of course, the blueberries we eat today are good for us. But nutrition’s role in cancer prevention is much more complex than a single dietary component: Evidence has mounted, for example, that lifestyle — diet, weight control and exercise — is vital in helping reduce risk. For now, experts endorse general dietary advice that is healthful for a variety of chronic diseases and conditions, rather than reductionist thinking that focuses on single foods or nutrients.

When you hear that a certain food helps prevent cancer, ask: Which cancer? “Cancer is multiple diseases,” said Marian Neuhouser, a nutritional epidemiologist at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle. Whereas cardiovascular disease might be broken down into several types, including myocardial infarction, stroke and peripheral vascular disease, she said, “for cancer, it’s really over 100 different diseases.” “Cancer is a very complex, very challenging disease to study whether you’re looking at it on the cell level or the clinical level or the epidemiologic and preventive level,” Willett said.

Researchers caution about overreacting to a single study. New findings come out every week, but “we never take any one study to be the answer to anything,” said Nancy Potischman, a nutritional epidemiologist at the National Cancer Institute. Only if the same results come up in multiple studies across multiple populations, “then you might think that, yes, this food might be important,” she said.

Tobacco use remains the leading preventable cause of cancer incidence and death worldwide. After tobacco, the lifestyle trio of diet, weight control and exercise may be linked to one-third to two-thirds of cancers. “They’re inseparable,” Neuhouser said. “You can have a great diet and you can have a healthy weight, but if you’re extremely sedentary then there’s a risk.”And there’s a strong link between excess weight and several kinds of cancer, including the esophagus, breast (after menopause), endometrium, colon and rectum, kidney, pancreas, thyroid, gallbladder, according to the NCI. 

Evidence mounts about how lifestyle may affect risk of cancer. In the largest study of its kind, nearly half a million Americans were evaluated for adherence to American Cancer Society cancer prevention guidelines that include smoking avoidance; a healthful, consistent weight; physical activity; limiting alcohol; and a diet emphasizing plants.

Those who followed the guidelines most closely had lowered risk of developing cancer (10 percent for men, 19 percent for women) and dying from cancer (25 percent for men, 24 percent for women) compared with those whose habits were least in line with the guidelines. Most striking was the reduction of overall risk of dying: 26 percent for men, 33 percent for women during the 14-year study period.

Fourteen types of cancer seemed affected by lifestyle behavior, most particularly gallbladder, endometrial, liver and colorectal. For men and women, a healthful weight and physical activity were the top factors in reduced deaths overall. Albert Einstein College of Medicine Researchers published this analysis online in January in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, based on data from a National Institutes of Health/AARP study.

Another approach to cancer and nutrition considers dietary patterns. “What we eat on any one day is not going to change our cancer risk, but it’s the pattern over the long term.” Neuhouser said. Several diets that emphasized fruit, vegetables, whole grains and plants or plant-based proteins were analyzed against information collected over more than 12 years from nearly 64,000 post-menopausal women in the Women’s Health Initiative Observational Study. Consuming a high-quality diet was associated with lower death rates from chronic diseases including cancer, as reported last year in the American Journal of Epidemiology.

The bacteria, viruses and other organisms that live in and on humans seem to play a bigger role in health and disease than was previously understood, Freudenheim said. How the countless microbes in such areas as the gut and the mouth might contribute to or prevent cancers is one of the open questions in the new area of study of the microbiome, which refers to the many organisms in the body, 10 percent of which are human and 90 percent nonhuman.

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The researcher who led the study pointed out that millions of people live with and die from cardiovascular disease and that : "Many of these deaths may be prevented by the right lifestyle, including diet." Eating oily fish appears to be part of a healthy lifestyle. From Medical Xpress:

Consuming oily fish could repair damaged blood vessels

Eating oily fish may not only keep your heart healthy but it could actually help to fix damaged blood vessels faster, reducing your risk of cardiovascular disease, University of Reading scientists have found. It is well known that these high in omega-3 fatty acid foods can improve the elasticity of blood vessels and potentially protect against heart disease.

However the reasons for these positive effects are less clear. This study tested two new emerging markers of cardiovascular disease that are of particular interest to researchers in the quest for answers.

The first was endothelial progenitor cells (EPCs), stem cells made in the bone marrow that repair the linings of blood vessels when they become damaged. Previous studies associate a higher number of EPCs with a lower risk of heart disease. Over a period of eight weeks the researchers introduced small amounts (3 g per day) of fish oils to a volunteer group of people with mild risk of cardiovascular risk of a mixed age range. At the end of the eight weeks this study group increased their EPCs numbers by up to 15% compared to a control group.

The second marker, endothelial microparticles (EMPs), are tiny circular vesicles which are shed when the lining of blood vessels is damaged. High numbers of these indicates a high degree of blood vessel damage and are associated with higher risk of heart disease. At the end of the trial, the group consuming the oily fish decreased EMPs by 20% compared to the control group.

"Fish oil is known to increase the release of nitric oxide from the lining of the blood vessel wall which causes relaxation of the vessel and increases blood flow. Our study shows that fish oils could be better for our heart in more ways than previously thought, decreasing damage to the lining of blood vessels and by increasing the numbers of cells which repair those linings.

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Another study that links following the Mediterranean diet with a beneficial health effect - this time a lower risk of ischemic stroke. Unfortunately, it did not seem to lower the risk of hemorrhagic stroke.

The findings were presented at the American Stroke Association's annual meeting. From Medical Xpress:

Mediterranean diet may lower stroke risk, study finds

A Mediterranean diet may reduce your risk of one type of stroke, new research suggests. People who most closely followed the Mediterranean diet were less likely to suffer an ischemic stroke—caused by a blood clot—compared to people with the lowest adherence to the diet, the study found.

A Mediterranean diet includes plenty of fruits and vegetables, whole grains, legumes, nuts, fish, poultry and olive oil. There is limited consumption of red meat, sweets and saturated fats such as those in meat, butter and full-fat dairy products, according to the researchers.

Sherzai's team analyzed data from more than 104,000 teachers in California, averaging 52 years of age, who are taking part in a long-term study. The participants, 90 percent of who were white, were divided into five groups based on how well they followed a Mediterranean diet.

While closely following a Mediterranean diet was associated with a reduced risk of a stroke caused by a blood clot, the healthy eating plan had no effect on a person's odds for a bleeding (hemorrhagic) stroke, according to the study.

According to the researchers, prior research has shown that people who follow a Mediterranean diet have a lower risk of heart disease, mental decline and death, but there is little information about how the diet affects stroke risk.Wright noted that the study was especially rigorous, since the authors accounted for "other factors that would reduce stroke risks, such as exercise, total caloric intake,body mass index, smoking and menopausal/hormonal status."