vegetable intake to subsequent cardiovascular death. The authors
found that those residents whose reported intake of carotenecontaining
fruit or vegetables was in the highest quartile had a
46% lower risk of death from CVD than did residents whose
reported intake was in the lowest quartile. In a 14-y study of
5133 Finnish adults, Knekt et al (13) assessed vegetable intake
with a diet history method and found a relative risk of 0.66
(P = 0.02) for coronary mortality when comparing the highest
and lowest tertiles of vegetable intake. However, few prospective
studies have attempted to relate fruit and vegetable intake to
CVD morbidity in general and to the incidence of myocardial
infarction (MI) in particular. As pointed out by Ness and Powles
(11), the causal link between fruit and vegetable intake and risk
of CVD has been more assumed than actually shown.