Dietary fat, sodium tied to stroke risk.(News)

NEW ORLEANS -- For the first time, physicians have evidence independently linking high dietary levels of fat and sodium to an increased risk of ischemic stroke, based on findings from an epidemiologic study in New York.

Experts who heard these findings at the 30th International Stroke Conference hailed them as a key step for changing public health guidelines in the United States.

Until now, "there has not been evidence of a strong association" between dietary fat and sodium and stroke, commented Lawrence Brass, M.D., professor of neurology, epidemiology, and public health at Yale University, New Haven.

"These new data will allow us to make a stronger statement," added Dr. Brass, a member of the American Stroke Association's committee that writes guidelines for the primary prevention of stroke.

A link between fat and sodium and stroke "may sound like common sense, but guidelines are based on the available scientific data. Without the data we can't include them," said Ralph Sacco, M.D., professor of neurology and epidemiology at Columbia University in New York and the senior investigator for both of the new studies.

Both studies used data collected in the Northern Manhattan Study, which enrolled 3,298 people who lived in northern Manhattan in 1993. The subjects were assessed at baseline, and 3,183 answered a food frequency questionnaire that was used to calculate their average, daily intake of fat and sodium. At entry, this group had an average age of 70 years; they were followed for an average of 5.5 years, during which 142 had an ischemic stroke.

The analysis that examined the link between stroke incidence and dietary fat assessed fat intake both as a continuous variable and as a dichotomous variable, with 65 g/day as the dividing line between a low- and high-fat diet. Current diet recommendations of the National ...