The effect of green leafy and cruciferous vegetable intake on the incidence of cardiovascular disease: A meta-analysis

“…Our results differ from other studies that found no association between cruciferous vegetables and stroke [12] or CHD [32,43], but are consistent with our results from a previous study on an old Mediterranean cohort [11]. Bendinelli [9] analyzed the association between fruit and vegetable consumption and CHD in a Mediterranean cohort of women, and found an inverse association with green leafy vegetables, which was consistent with other studies [32,44,45], but did not report the results for cruciferous vegetables alone. Cruciferous vegetables contain sulforaphane [7], the most widely studied and best characterized isothiocyanate [46] which is a long-acting antioxidant, but also has anti-inflammatory activity by inhibition of cytokine production.…”

“…American). Collard greens, purslane and sweet potato greens, incorporated into the experimental diets of the current study, have demonstrated beneficial cardioprotective, chemopreventive and anti-inflammatory effects in previous studies [ 57 – 63 ]. The inclusion of these GLVs resulted in increased mono- and polyunsaturated fatty acid percentages within the SHR erythrocyte, which may in turn decrease the risks associated with disease pathogenesis in an animal model predisposed to developing hypertension and other associated comorbidities.…”

“…Zhang et al[7], in a meta-analysis of observational studies, concluded that consumption of green leafy vegetables might not be associated with MetS risk. Despite the results given above, several different meta-analyses suggest that green leafy vegetable consumption significantly reduced risk of type 2 diabetes and CVD[9,11,16,18]; an increase of 0.2 serving/d of green leafy vegetables was associated with 13% reduction in type 2 diabetes[23]. Our study showed that although consumption of green leafy vegetables significantly reduced risk of MetS to a median intake of 27 g/wk, there was a threshold of around 30 g/d, after which this inverse association disappeared; similar reductions of associated risk until the last median intake was similarly reported in two previous cohort studies[22,23].…”