
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: WEDNESDAY, April 12, 1995                   TAG: 9504120065
SECTION: NATL/ITNL                    PAGE: A1   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: ASSOCIATED PRESS
DATELINE: CHICAGO                                 LENGTH: Medium

ONCE AGAIN: EAT YOUR VEGETABLES!

A hill of beans may amount to more than you think. The same with a bunch of bananas.

Middle-age men who ate a lot of fruits and vegetables were significantly less likely to suffer strokes over a 20-year period than other men, a study found.

``It was a bit surprising to us how strong [the link] was,'' said the lead author, Dr. Matthew W. Gillman, assistant professor of ambulatory care and prevention at Harvard Medical School and Harvard Community Health Plan.

``For every increase of three servings of fruits and vegetables per day, there was approximately a 20 percent decrease in the risk of stroke,'' he said in a telephone interview Monday from Boston.

The findings are published in today's issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association.

The results parallel findings reported two years ago among women. Those who ate lots of spinach, carrots and other vegetables and fruits rich in antioxidant nutrients had a 54 percent lower risk of stroke than other women.

Stroke is the third leading cause of U.S. deaths, killing about 150,000 of the 500,000 people it strikes a year.

Previous studies have also indicated that people who eat a lot of fruit and vegetables have low rates of cancer, though researchers are not sure if there is a direct link. Fruits and vegetables also contribute to a high-fiber, low-fat diet, which is strongly associated with heart health.

The new study involved 832 men ages 45 to 65 who were tracked in the Framingham, Mass., Heart Study for two decades. Over that time, 73 men suffered strokes and 24 others suffered transient ischemic attacks, or mini-strokes.

The researchers calculated differences in stroke risk while accounting for other factors that might have affected the results - differences in blood pressure, cholesterol, smoking habits, alcohol consumption and body fat.

The study did not explore how fruits and vegetables might be protective, but several possibilities have been suggested, including the fact that such foods are rich in antioxidant nutrients, Gillman said.

by CNB