Cut Stroke Risk 38% By Avoiding This FoodIn the past two decades, a growing number of researchers have started arguing that one of the biggest risks for high cholesterol and heart disease is inflammation.

The Journal of the American College of Cardiology has contributed to this debate in the last month by publishing two studies that show the dangers of inflammatory foods for heart health.

In the first study, the scientists used data from 74,578 women from the Nurses’ Health Study I, 91,656 women from the Nurses’ Health Study II, and 43,911 men from the Health Professionals Follow-up Study. These studies followed their participants for around 32 years.

The participants completed a questionnaire every four years to examine their food and beverage intake and also underwent medical examinations. They were all free of cancer and cardiovascular disease at the beginning of the studies.

The scientists also used the Dietary Inflammation Index, which was compiled from available research and investigates signs of inflammation in people’s bodies caused by different types of foods. The index ranks foods from most to least inflammatory.

The researchers found that—compared to participants who consumed a mostly anti-inflammatory diet—those who consumed a mostly pro-inflammatory diet had a 38% greater chance of developing cardiovascular disease and a 28% greater chance of having a stroke.

This is after the scientists accounted for the participants’ body mass index, level of physical activity, family history of heart disease, and their consumption of anti-inflammatory drugs.

So, what are the foods that worsen inflammation?

The main enemies are basically processed meat, refined grains, fried foods, organ meats, and sugary treats and beverages, with diets rich in red meat scoring quite high as well.

The most anti-inflammatory foods are leafy greens, cruciferous vegetables, yellow and orange vegetables, berries, apples, poultry, fish, legumes, dairy, and nuts.

This leads us to the second study in the same journal, in which scientists split their 634 participants into a group that ate 30 to 60 grams of walnuts per day and a group that ate none.

They knew that previous studies had shown a lower heart disease risk in people who ate a lot of walnuts, so they wanted to see whether these people had low inflammation levels in their bodies to identify that as the cause for improved heart health.

After two years, the walnut consumers had substantially lower levels of six of the 10 inflammatory markers tested. They also had lower cholesterol levels.

Therefore, pay attention to the inflammatory potential of the foods you eat to combat heart disease, cholesterol, and stroke.

OK, finally the traditional health system is catching up with the inflammation/heart connection that I have been discussing for years.

But there is another factor behind the inflammation that nobody is talking about— and that’s the real underlying cause of stroke and heart attack. But avoiding all this is as easy as cutting out one food item explained here…