A sufficient intake of vegetables is important for maintaining a balanced diet and avoiding a wide range of diseases.
But might a diet rich in vegetables also lower the risk of cardiovascular disease (CVD)?
In a new study from the University of Oxford and elsewhere, researchers found no evidence for this.
That the consumption of vegetables might lower the risk of CVD might, at first sight, seem plausible, as their ingredients such as carotenoids and alpha-tocopherol have properties that could protect against CVD.
In the study, the team found that higher consumption of cooked or uncooked vegetables is unlikely to affect the risk of CVD.
They also explain how confounding factors might have explained previous spurious, positive findings.
The team used the UK Biobank’s large sample size, long-term follow-up, and detailed information on social and lifestyle factors to. assess reliably the association of vegetable intake with the risk of subsequent CVD
They used the responses at enrollment of 399,586 participants (of whom 4.5% went on to develop CVD) to questions about their daily average consumption of uncooked versus cooked vegetables.
They analyzed the association with the risk of hospitalization or death from myocardial infarction, stroke, or major CVD.
Researchers found the risk of dying from CVD was about 15% lower for those with the highest intake compared to the lowest vegetable intake.
However, this apparent effect was weakened when possible socio-economic, nutritional, and health- and medicine-related confounding factors were taken into account.
Controlling for these factors reduced the predictive power of vegetable intake on CVD by over 80%, suggesting that more precise measures of these confounders would have completed explained any residual effect of vegetable intake.
The study did not find evidence for a protective effect of vegetable intake on the occurrence of CVD.
Instead, it shows that the seemingly protective effect of vegetable intake against CVD risk is very likely to be accounted for by bias from residual confounding factors, related to differences in socioeconomic situation and lifestyle.
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The study is published in Frontiers in Nutrition and was conducted by Dr. Qi Feng et al.
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