Global, regional, and national temporal trends of diet-related ischemic stroke mortality and disability from 1990 to 2019.

Background: Stroke is the second leading cause of death and the third leading cause of disability in the general population worldwide. However, the changing trend of ischemic stroke burden attributable to various dietary risk factors has not been fully revealed and may contribute to a better understanding of stroke epidemiology.

Aims: Our article aimed to evaluate the temporal trend of diet-related ischemic stroke burden to inform future research and policy-making.

Methods: This analysis was based on the data from the Global Burden of Disease (GBD) Study 2019 (spanning years 1990 to 2019), and we used the joinpoint regression to model temporal trends in diet-related ischemic stroke burden across countries and regions of the world during the study period. Six specific dietary factors known to influence stroke risk, including sodium, red meat, fiber, vegetables, whole grains, and fruits, were evaluated in the GBD study to determine their individual and joint impact on ischemic stroke. The changing trend was primarily measured by the average annual percent change (AAPC). Age-standardized rates (ASRs) of mortality and years lived with disability (YLD) per 100,000 population were used to evaluate disease burden. Finally, the socioeconomic background, which was quantified as sociodemographic index (SDI), and its association with diet-related ischemic stroke burden were also explored with the Pearson correlation coefficient.

Results: During the study period, the ischemic stroke ASR of mortality attributable to overall dietary risk decreased by an average of 1.6% per year, while the ASR of YLD decreased by an average of 0.2% per year. High sodium diet was still a key driver of diet-related ischemic stroke, accounting for 8.4% and 11.0% of deaths and disabilities, respectively, in 2019. In addition, we found a negative association between temporal evolution of stroke burden and socioeconomic background (r = -0.6603 for mortality and r = -0.4224 for disability, P < 0.001), which suggested that the developing countries with weak social and economic foundation faced greater challenges from the ongoing burden of diet-related strokes compared with developed countries.

Conclusions: Our study found declining trends and revealed the current status of diet-related ischemic stroke mortality and disability. Interdisciplinary countermeasures involving the development of effective food policies, evidence-based guidelines, and public education are needed in the future to combat this global epidemic.

Data access statement: The data used for analysis were open-access and can be obtained from https://vizhub.healthdata.org/gbd-results/.