Lower risk of stroke with a vegetarian diet.

In this issue of Neurology® , Chiu et al.1 report that a vegetarian diet reduced the risk of stroke in 2 cohorts of Buddhist adherents in Taiwan, who refrained from alcohol and tobacco. The low overall risk of stroke likely reflects the mean age at baseline of only ∼50 years in both cohorts and the relatively short duration of follow-up (5–7 years in cohort 1 and 9 years in cohort 2). In both cohorts, ∼30% followed a vegetarian diet. Importantly, only ∼25% of vegetarians were men.