To elucidate effects of various food-intakes, cigarette smoking and alcohol drinking on development of cerebrovascular diseases (CVD) among a general population, a 15 year follow-up study was carried out in Hisayama, Kyushu Island, Japan. With the food frequency interview method, data concerning frequencies of taking rice, meat, fish, milk, green vegitable, “tukemono” (pickled vegetables), “miso-shiru” (miso soup), cigarette smoking and alcohol drinking were obtained from 94 per cent of the residents, aged 40 to 69 years, in 1965. Blood pressure, body height, weight, serum protein and serum total cholesterol were determined at the time of the adults health examination in the summer of 1965, prior to the food frequency interview. Detailed information about development of CVD was available for the subjects who had been followed-up since 1961 as a cohort of the Hisayama Study, an ongoing longitudinal epidemiological study. As a result, it was confirmed that 111 out of 1, 110 subjects who belonged to the Hisayama cohort had newly developed the first attack of CVD during the follow-up period. Out of 111 subjects, 77 died and 73 of them underwent post mortem examination (the autopsy rate was 95 per cent). The types of CVD were as follows; cerebral thrombosis 72, cerebral embolism 1, cerebral hemorrhage 23, subarachnoid hemorrhage 12 and ill-defined type of CVD 3.
Using Cox's proportional hazard model and its computer software PHGLM in SAS, multivariate analysis showed that elevated level in systolic blood pressure, male sex, and advancing age were selected, in stepwise, as significant risk factors (p<0.05) for developing CVD as a whole. For development of cerebral thrombosis, advancing age and alcohol drinking were selected as significant, based on the frequency of food intakes and when the items of the above mentioned measurements were added to the model, elevated systolic blood pressure, male sex, advancing age and elevated diastolic blood pressure were selected. When the data were analysed after dividing by sex and age, elevated systolic blood pressure was selected as the most significant risk factor for CVD as a whole, in both sexes and agegroups. As the second one, however, low intake of meat was selected for the middle-aged (40 to 54 years) male subjects and low intake of fish for the old-aged (55 to 69 years) male subjects, respectively. For development of cerebral thrombosis, among the old-aged male subjects, low intake of fish remained as the second significant risk factor next to high systolic blood pressure.
Although the food intake frequency method is not quantitative, it represents some dietary pattern for a long time period. The results of the present study suggest that the consumption of fish may be of preventive value for arterial thrombosis as reported in the recent papers from the longitudinal prospective epidemiological studies for coronary heart disease in Europe.
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