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Diets That Deflate High Blood Pressure
People
with high blood pressure would benefit from redesigning their
diet in addition to avoiding salt.
That's the message from the multi-center DASH study reported in
the New England Journal of Medicine (vol. 336 (16): 1117-1124).
Adding several servings of fruits and vegetables and a few low-fat dairy foods to a reduced-fat diet significantly lowered blood pressure in African-American and Caucasian men and women.
ARS dietitians helped design the menus used to feed nearly 460 volunteers at four centers around the country. They also prepared all meals for The Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore.
One third
of the volunteers got a "typical" U.S. diet - low in
fruits, vegetables and dairy products, with 37 percent of calories
from fat. This group served as controls. Another third ate the
same amount of fat but with eight to 10 servings of fruits and
vegetables daily. The third group got a low-fat diet with the
extra fruits and vegetables plus three servings of dairy products.
This combination diet had 27 percent of calories as fat with only
6 percent saturated fat.
After eight weeks on this combination diet, systolic pressure dropped an average 11.4 points and diastolic pressure was down 5.5 points in the volunteers with high blood pressure. That's about what can be achieved with a single medication.
The average
drop for all participants, including those with normal blood pressure,
was also significant - 5.5 and 3 points, respectively.
The combination menu was designed to increase intakes of fiber and three minerals important for blood pressure regulation--potassium, magnesium and calcium.
Bananas, dried
fruits and melon pieces, for instance, supplied extra potassium,
which totaled 4,700 milligrams daily. Spinach, dried fruits, broccoli
and scallions helped raise the magnesium
intake to 500 mg. daily. And low-fat dairy products brought calcium
intake up to 1,200 mg. Fiber intake was 30 grams daily. Salt
was held at 3,000 mg. for all diets.
Suggested menus are posted
on the Web - Harvard
DASH Diet.
Source... USDA
Human Studies Facility (HSF)
Related Chiff.com Healthy Nutrition Articles:
This
information is intended as reference and not as medical advice.
All treatment decisions should be made by medical professionals.
also see
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Disease | Heart
Disease Causes
Heart
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