Association between the Composite Dietary Antioxidant Index and Stroke: A cross-sectional Study

The composite dietary antioxidant index (CDAI) is indeed a valuable nutritional tool used to evaluate the overall antioxidant capacity of an individual's daily food consumption. The CDAI was calculated from the intake of six antioxidant components in the diet, including vitamin A, vitamin C and vitamin E, carotenoids, selenium, and zinc. This study aimed to determine the association between CDAI and stroke. Utilizing data from the 2003-2018 NHANES dataset, CDAI was computed by summarizing the intake of six dietary antioxidants based on 24-hour dietary recall interviews. The relationship between CDAI and stroke was examined using multivariate logistic regression and restricted cubic spline analysis. This study ultimately included 39,432 participants, of whom 1,527 (3.87%) had a stroke. The multivariate logistic regression model 3 that fully adjusted all confounding variables showed a negative association between CDAI and stroke (OR = 0.97; 95% CI:0.95, 0.99). The highest tertile of CDAI saw a 23% drop in the prevalence of stroke compared to the lowest tertile (OR = 0.77; 95%CI: 0.64,0.92). Restricted cubic spline suggested that this negative correlation was nonlinear with an inflection point of -2.99. Subgroup analyses and interaction tests showed that this negative correlation was more applicable in patients with prediabetes (P < 0.05). There was a non-linear negative correlation between CDAI level and stroke prevalence, and this correlation was more significant in people with pre-diabetes. Appropriate CDAI levels may contribute to the management of stroke risk.