Background and purpose: Fish consumption has been postulated to reduce the risk of stroke. We conducted a dose-response meta-analysis to summarize the evidence from prospective studies regarding the association between fish consumption and stroke risk.
Methods: Pertinent studies were identified by searching Embase and PubMed through May 2011 and by reviewing the references of retrieved articles. We included prospective studies that reported relative risks with 95% CIs of stroke for ≥3 categories of fish consumption. Results were combined using a random-effects model.
Results: Fifteen prospective studies, with 9360 stroke events among 383 838 participants, were included. An increment of 3 servings/week in fish consumption was associated with a 6% reduction in risk of total stroke (relative risk, 0.94; 95% CI, 0.89-0.99) without heterogeneity among studies (P=0.15, I2=25.7%). Among 9 studies with results for stroke subtypes, the relative risks were 0.90 (95% CI, 0.84-0.97) for ischemic stroke and 0.90 (95% CI, 0.76-1.06) for hemorrhagic stroke.
Conclusions: These findings indicate that fish consumption is weakly inversely associated with the risk of stroke.