LONDON: Daily fruit consumption can cut the risk of overall death by 32 per cent and cardiovascular disease (CVD) by up to 40 per cent, according to a new Oxford study.

The findings from the seven year follow-up study of nearly 0.5 million people in the China Kadoorie Biobank found that the more fruit people ate, the more their risk of CVD declined.

"CVD, including ischaemic heart disease (IHD) and stroke, is the leading cause of death worldwide. Improving diet and lifestyle is critical for CVD risk reduction in the general population but the large majority of this evidence has come from western countries and hardly any from China," said Dr Huaidong Du from Oxford University.

The current study included 451,681 participants with no history of CVD and not on anti-hypertensive treatment at baseline in 10 different areas of China, 5 rural and 5 urban.

Over the seven year follow up period there were 19,300 cases of IHD and 19,689 strokes (14,688 is chaemic and 3,562 haemorrhagic).

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