A compound found in oranges, grapefruit, and other citrus fruit may modestly reduce stroke risk among women, an observational study determined.
Women with the highest levels of flavanone in their diet were 19% less likely to have an ischemic stroke during 14 years of follow-up than those with the least flavanone intake (P=0.04), Aedín Cassidy, PhD, of the University of East Anglia in Norwich, England, and colleagues found
As the main source of these antioxidants, citrus fruit and juice showed a similar trend (relative risk 0.90, 95% CI 0.77 to 1.05), they reported in the April issue of Stroke: Journal of the American Heart Association.
Vitamin C has gotten most of the praise for the protective effect of citrus found in prior stroke studies, but in Cassidy's analysis of the Nurses' Health Study, the vitamin didn't correlate with total or ischemic stroke or attenuate the link to flavanones.
