By Merritt McKinney

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - A new report provides more evidence that a low-fat diet full of fruits and vegetables, but little salt, can lead to a significant drop in blood pressure.


The findings underscore the role that diet, specifically a low-fat diet called DASH, can play in lowering blood pressure, the study's lead author told Reuters Health.

The report "re-emphasized the benefits of the DASH diet and a lower sodium intake for reducing blood pressure," said Dr. George A. Bray of Pennington Biomedical Research Center in Baton Rouge, Louisiana.

In the study, 412 people were randomly assigned to a typical U.S. diet or the DASH diet (Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension). The DASH diet focuses on fruit, vegetables, low-fat dairy foods, whole grains, poultry, fish and nuts.

Researchers varied participants' salt intake, with each group consuming high, medium and low levels of salt per day for a month at a time during the 3-month study.

At the start of the study, the subjects' systolic blood pressure -- the upper number in a reading -- ranged from 120 to 159 millimeters of mercury (mm Hg) and diastolic pressure -- the lower number -- ranged from 80 to 95 mm Hg.

Blood pressure of 140/90 mm Hg or higher is considered high -- even if only one number is elevated. A reading between 130/85 and 139/89 is considered high normal.

"Reducing sodium intake consistently reduced blood pressure across all participating groups," Bray said.

The lower the reduction in sodium, the lower was the reduction in blood pressure, Bray and his team report in a recent issue of the American Journal of Cardiology.

The pressure-lowering benefits of cutting back on salt were consistent regardless of race, ethnicity, gender, age or previous blood pressure level, the study found.

When it comes to reducing blood pressure by cutting back on salt, lower may be better, the findings suggest. Although blood pressure dropped when people switched from high-sodium intake to medium intake, the drop was roughly twice as large when they switched from the medium intake to the low intake.

This suggests that it may be worthwhile to lower recommended sodium intake, as the medium level is the upper limit of current U.S. recommendations, according to Bray.

"Lower values for sodium intake could reduce blood pressure for most people," Bray said.

Bray's team also found that age was strongly related to the effect of sodium reduction and the DASH diet on blood pressure. The benefits of cutting back on sodium and going on the low-fat diet increased with age.

The researchers suggest that sodium reduction and the DASH diet should be recommended for preventing and treating high blood pressure because the benefits tend to increase once people enter middle age.

SOURCE: American Journal of Cardiology, July 15, 2004.


What they don't research is dangers table top salt vs natural sea salt.

More propaganda masquerading as 'research'.

They knew what they wanted the results to be before they started.

A. Comparing almost ANY diet to the 'Standard American Diet' gives good results. ANYTHING in the world is better than that.

B. Lowering BP doesn't have a whole lot of effect on anything, anyway.

Our intrepid reporter Gary Taubes tackled the salt issue, too.


http://reason.com/rb/rb050201.shtml

Those NaCl molecules that come from the sea sure are different from the ones that come from elsewhere. That ionic bond is so much more "natural" when it comes from the sea.



Really?
From the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute, part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH):


Not a whole lot of effect on anything?

Ref:
http://www.medicinenet.com/script/m...rticlekey=23356

Really?
From the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute, part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH):


Not a whole lot of effect on anything?

Ref:
http://www.medicinenet.com/script/m...rticlekey=23356[/QUOTE]

It may well be true that people with hypertension have a somewhat higher risk of CHD. But is it a CAUSE or an effect?

And if you lower the BP, does it lower the risk of developing CHD?

Not so far:
"No randomized clinical trials have ever proven that lowering an elevated systolic blood pressure to 140 reduces the risk for death due to coronary disease. A good example of this was the multicenter Multiple Risk Factor Trial (MRFIT) designed to demonstrate that reducing hypertension, high cholesterol and smoking would lower coronary mortality. After screening some 350,000 middle-aged men, close to 13,000 believed to be at greater jeopardy because of a preponderance of these putative risk factors were selected. They were divided into a treatment group to lower these markers and a control group that received usual care.



After ten years and $115 million, although the treatment group substantially achieved their objectives, they fared no different than controls who received usual care. In point of fact, a subset of hypertensives treated with diuretics had the highest mortality rates, probably from ventricular fibrillation due to potassium depletion. The MRFIT objective was to get blood pressures below 140/90. One can only wonder what the mortality rate would have been if under 120/80 had been the goal."


European Heart Journal, issue 20, October 2000:

‘It is widely believed that randomised trials have proved that lowering blood pressure is beneficial. Actually, that is not true. All antihypertensive drugs have profound effects on the cardiovascular system, aside from their haemodynamic (blood pressure lowering) effect. How much, if any, of the observed risk reduction can be ascribed to the reduction in pressure and how much to the direct action of the drug on the cardiovascular system? Motivated by the belief in the linear relationship of risk to pressure, many automatically attribute the risk reduction to the pressure reduction, ignoring the direct action of the drugs on the target outcomes. But results of a multitude of clinical trials make it clear that such a simplistic view cannot be true. In fact, evidence is mounting (especially from the newer trials) that it is the direct effects that are producing most, if not all, or the benefit and that the accompanying blood pressure reduction may be just an inconsequential side effect.’ Port S et al.