Source:  Lisa M. Keefe, MEATINGPLACE.COM, 1/5/11

Red meat consumption by women may lead to an increased risk of stroke, according to a new study of more than 30,000 Swedish women who were tracked for more than a decade, according to the abstract of an academic article published online for the journal Stroke, from the American Heart Association.

Women who ate at least 3.6 ounces of red meat a day — those in the top tenth for red meat consumption among those participating — researchers found were 42 percent more likely to suffer a stroke due to blocked blood flow in the brain than were women who ate about an ounce of red meat, or less, each day. In total, about 4 percent of all the women studied had a stroke.

All of the 34,670 women between the ages of 39 and 73 years old who participated were cardiovascular disease- and cancer-free at the beginning of the study, in 1997, Reuters reported.

The consumption of red or processed meat seemed to be linked to incidence of stroke caused by blockage of an artery that supplies blood to the brain. Meat consumption was not linked to strokes caused by bleeding in the brain or unspecified causes. Also, consumption of fresh meat or poultry was not linked to any type of stroke.

Several mechanisms could explain the link between red meat and processed meat and stroke risk, say the researchers, from the Karolinska Institutet in Stockholm and the National Institute for Health and Welfare in Helsinki, Finland.

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