At the 2023 American Heart Association Conference, scientists demonstrated that a diet can lower blood pressure by 8 mmHg in one week.
It would be if simple and if fast only that ? Hypertension arterial blood pressure is a confirmed factor in cardiovascular disease. It promotes heart attack And Stroke to name only the most well-known conditions. Some people are treated for their hypertension while others are unaware. For these two populations, the objective is identical: to preserve the health of the heart and its vessels by doing lower blood pressure. Of the drugs are prescribed for this (and fortunately they exist) but food also plays a very important role. Not to mention depriving yourself, there are some efforts to do. Little moreover if we look at the conclusions of the American CARDIA-SSBP study, presented at the AHA 2023 Congress (American Heart Association) which was held in Philadelphia from November 10 to 13, 2023 and published in the JAMA.
“The reduction is really significant”
According to the authors, it would be enough to follow a low-salt diet for just one week to reduce your systolic blood pressure by about 8 mm Hg. Exit the “without” salt diet that is impossible to follow. “The reduction we are seeing is significant and comparable to that produced by a single antihypertensive drug” said Dr. Deepak Gupta, lead researcher at Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville, Tennessee. In his study conducted with 213 people aged 50 to 75 years, with or without hypertension, commercially available products for low sodium diets were used. Participants’ blood pressure was measured over 24 hours. Some then followed a diet rich (about 2,200 mg of sodium added daily to the usual diet) or low in salt (about 500 mg per day in total) for a week then did the opposite the following week. And their blood pressure was remeasured for 24 hours on the last day of each diet.
“No excessive adverse events”
Upon arrival, the low-sodium diet reduced blood pressure in nearly 75% of individuals compared to the high sodium diet. Subjects who had a median systolic blood pressure of 125 mm Hg with their usual diet increased to 126 mm Hg on the high sodium diet and 119 mm Hg on the low sodium diet. This drop in blood pressure was “independent of the use of antihypertensive medications and did not cause excessive adverse events” the authors clarified in their conclusions. For Dr. Gupta, interviewed by Medscape Cardiology: “It’s like walking: it is not necessary to take 10,000 steps a day. Any amount of walking or physical activity is beneficial. The same is probably true for salt: any possible reduction is probably beneficial.”