Fat for fewer strokes - updates

Better Nutrition, Nov, 2002

Fat found in specific, unprocessed and unheated vegetable oils protects against the risk of stroke, says a study that appeared in the August 2002 issue of Stroke, a journal of the American Heart Association.

Linoleic acid--an essential fatty acid--is found in corn, sunflower oil, safflower oil and soybeans, but not in fish oil. It is just one variety of fat in a group known as the omega-6 essential fatty acids.

Utako Umemura, PhD, of Tokyo Bunka Junior College, and other researchers at university and medical centers across Japan, worked together on the study. They measured subjects' consumption of linoleic acid and history of strokes.

The decisive results show that a mere 5 percent increase in ingestion of the acid produces a 28 percent decrease in overall average stroke risk.

Ischemic strokes, which are caused when arteries narrow, slowing the flow of blood, were reduced by 34 percent. Consuming linoleic acid decreased strokes in the small arteries inside the brain by a full 37 percent.