Dietary Patterns and Risk of Stroke in Adults: A Systematic Review and Meta-analysis of Prospective Cohort Studies

Background: The effect of whole diet on the development of stroke has recently achieved much interest by various prospective studies, but with inconclusive results. Herein, we carried this meta-analysis to identify the potential associations between different dietary patterns and the risk of stroke by pooling available data from existing studies. Methods: PubMed and EBSCO were searched for pertinent articles that identify dietary patterns published from January 1991 to November 2014, with the following keywords: dietary pattern, dietary patterns, food pattern, eating pattern, alcohol drinking, alcohol consumption, and stroke. Results: A total of 21 studies met the inclusion criteria and were included in this meta-analysis. A decreased risk of stroke was shown for the highest compared with the lowest categories of healthy dietary pattern (odds ratio [OR]=.77; 95% confidence interval [CI]=.63-.93; P<.00001) and light-moderate drinking pattern (OR=.80; 95% CI=.72-.90; P=.0002). There was evidence of the increase in the risk of stroke in the highest compared with heavy alcohol-drinking pattern (OR=1.25; 95% CI=1.17-1.33; P<.00001), whereas no significant association with Western-style dietary pattern was observed (OR=1.05; 95% CI=.82-1.35; P=.70). Conclusions: The results of this meta-analysis indicated that some dietary patterns may be associated with the risk of stroke.