Research

Mixed

Consumption of fish (2-4 servings/week or more) is moderately associated with a reduced risk of cerebrovascular disease (stroke).

Aim to eat fish 2-4 times per week to potentially lower your risk of stroke. Focus on the whole food rather than relying on supplements, as the combination of nutrients in fish appears to drive the benefit.

GoodSupportsHIGH confidence
In cohort studies comparing categories of fish intake the pooled relative risk for cerebrovascular disease for 2-4 servings a week versus ≤1 servings a week was 0.94 (95% confidence intervals 0.90 to 0.98) and for ≥5 servings a week versus 1 serving a week was 0.88 (0.81 to 0.96).
Rajiv Chowdhury et al. · BMJ · 2012

Why this rating

Large scale meta-analysis of prospective cohort studies (n=794,000) with consistent findings, though observational design limits causal inference.

Source

Association between fish consumption, long chain omega 3 fatty acids, and risk of cerebrovascular disease: systematic review and meta-analysis

Rajiv Chowdhury et al. · BMJ · 2012

DOI 10.1136/bmj.e6698

Meta-analysis · 38 studiesCited 381×
Read the paper
DOI resolved against Crossref · corpus check 2026-06-10

This is one finding among thousands. Every one is graded and traced to its source, so you can see what the evidence actually supports. Browse the research →