What is the evidence that fruit and vegetable consumption protects human health?
Evidence that fruit and vegetable consumption protects human health is accumulating from large population (epidemiological) studies, human feeding studies, and cell culture studies. Listed below are a few selected population studies from the literature linking fruit and vegetable consumption to health. For an excellent review concerning vegetables, fruit and cancer prevention, see Steinmetz and Potter, Journal of the American Dietetic Association 1996;96:1027. Evidence that Carotenoids are Protective Fruit and vegetable consumption has been linked to decreased risk of stroke — both hemorrhagic and ischemic stroke. Each increment of three daily servings of fruits and vegetables equated to a 22% decrease in risk of stroke, including transient ischemic attack (Gillman et al. Journal of the American Medical Association. 1995;273;1113). Elderly men whose intake of dark green and deep yellow vegetable put them in the highest quartile for consumption of these vegetables had about a 46% decre
