Dietary habits and stroke: A Mendelian randomization analysis

Stroke is one of the diseases with a high incidence rate in the world, which endangers human health. Existing studies suggest an association between diet and stroke, but whether there is a causal relationship has not been clarified. With 9 common dietary habits as exposures and stroke as the outcome, we explored the causal relationship between dried fruit intake and stroke. We used 5 Mendelian randomization methods and 3 methods for sensitivity analysis. The 3 dietary habits obtained with the inverse-variance weighted method were associated with stroke. The results are as follows: alcohol usually taken with meals (odds ratio [OR] = 0.57, 95% confidence interval [CI] = 0.37-0.79, P = .007), dried fruit intake (OR = 0.51, 95% CI = 0.37-0.70, P = 3.69 × 10-5), and cheese intake (OR = 0.73, 95% CI = 0.58-0.92, P = .002). The relationship between dietary alcohol and cheese intake, and the finding that dried fruit intake can reduce the risk of stroke, have significant implications for the prevention and management of stroke.