The nutritional determinants of stroke and, more specifically, the association of frying with the risk of incident stroke have rarely been studied.
Our aim was to evaluate prospectively the association between the consumption of fried food and the risk of incident stroke in the European Prospective Investigation into Cancer and Nutrition study using the Spanish cohort.
Participants included 40,328 healthy adults (62% women) aged 29–69 y at study entry who were enrolled between 1992 and 1996. Participants were followed up until 31 December, 2017, at which time incident stroke (the main outcome) was measured. The main exposure measure was the percentage of energy obtained from fried-food consumption. Sex-specific quintiles were calculated.
During a follow-up period of 23.5 y, 975 cases of stroke occurred (750 ischemic, 185 hemorrhagic, and 40 undetermined). Compared with those in the first (lowest) quintile of fried-food consumption, the multivariate HRs (95% CIs) of incident stroke in the consecutive quintiles were 1.05 (0.86, 1.30), 1.11 (0.90, 1.36), 1.05 (0.84, 1.31), and 0.91 (0.72, 1.15; P-trend = 0.45). There were no differences identified when subtypes of stroke were considered.
In this Spanish cohort, whose participants mainly used olive oil or sunflower oil when frying, the consumption of fried food was not associated with an increased risk of incident stroke.