According to a study from the medical journal BMJ, vegetarians had a 20-percent increase in stroke risk than meat eaters.I think we knew the downside of flesh-eating with respect to heart disease. What is interesting is the upside of flesh-eating with regard to stroke.
Lead researcher Tammy Tong, a nutritional epidemiologist at the Nuffield Department of Population Health at the University of Oxford, suggests that the great stroke risk is due to vegetarian diets often lacking nutrients like vitamin B12.
The study also found that some good news for vegetarians and vegans. They had a 22 percent lower risk for heart disease compared to carnivores. Fish eaters had a 13 percent lower risk of coronary disease than meat eaters.
One of the problems with correlational studies of this sort is that causation is difficult to establish. Does the diet lead to stroke, or does some third issue lead to both.
In my experience, people in western cultures who forego eating meat and fish often hope to "treat" or ease some self-perceived problem with their own physical or emotional health. An underlying, undiagnosed physical or psychiatric issue could contribute to risk of stroke, directly or via stress.
