Vegetables intake and venous thromboembolism: a systematic review

A higher intake of vegetables has been convincingly associated with a decreased risk of arterial thrombotic disorders, so that a similar association may be expected with venous thromboembolism. An electronic search was conducted in Medline, Web of Science and Scopus to identify epidemiological studies that investigated the independent association between intake of vegetables and risk of venous thrombosis. Our systematic literature search allowed to identify four prospective and one case-control studies. Although a lower risk of venous thromboembolism was reported in one prospective and one case-control studies, no significant association was found between larger intake of vegetables and risk of venous thrombosis in the remaining three large prospective studies. Taken together, the epidemiological data available in the current scientific literature do not support the notion that higher consumption of vegetables may have a significant impact on the risk of venous thrombosis.