Posted on 04/14/2008 2:25:38 PM PDT by neverdem
AP Medical Writer
A large study offers the strongest evidence yet that a diet the government recommends for lowering blood pressure can save people from heart attack and stroke. Researchers followed more than 88,000 healthy women for almost 25 years. They examined their food choices and looked at how many had heart attacks and strokes. Those who fared best had eating habits similar to those recommended by the government to stop high blood pressure.
The plan, called the DASH diet, favors fruits, vegetables, whole grains, low-fat milk and plant-based protein over meat.
Women with those eating habits were 24 percent less likely to have a heart attack and 18 percent less likely to have a stroke than women with more typical American diets.
Those are meaningful reductions since these diseases are so common. About two in five U.S. women at age 50 will eventually develop cardiovascular disease, which includes heart attacks and strokes. Women in the study were in their mid-30s to late 50s when the research began in 1980.
Previous research has shown this kind of diet can help prevent high blood pressure and cholesterol, which both can lead to heart attacks.
The new study appears in Monday's Archives of Internal Medicine.
People might think, "I don't have high blood pressure, so I don't have to follow it," said Simmons University researcher Teresa Fung, the study's lead author. However, the results suggest, she said, that "even healthy people should get on it."
About 15,000 women in the study had diets that closely resembled the low blood pressure diet. They ate about twice as many fruits, vegetables and grains as the estimated 18,000 women whose diets more closely resembled typical American eating habits.
Although the study only followed women, Fung said men would probably get similar benefits from the approach.
The study was limited because it merely tracked the women and their habits for 24 years. That's a less rigorous method than randomly assigning equal groups of women different diets and comparing results. But that would be extremely difficult to do for such a long time.
Given that limitation, Dr. Laura Svetkey, director of Duke University's hypertension center, said the study provides the best evidence yet of important long-term benefits from a low blood pressure diet.
"It's nice to see research that really is aimed at helping people with prevention in a very practical way," Svetkey said. She noted that the DASH diet, which stands for Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension, is available free on the National Institutes of Health Web site. The study was funded with NIH grants.
Dr. Nieca Goldberg, medical director of New York University's Women's Heart Program, said many patients would rather take a pill than adjust their eating habits. But, Goldberg said, "I always point out to my patients, if you make these changes in your lives, it could ... keep you off medication" in the long run.
"There has to be a greater emphasis on the way we live our lives," she said.
Adherence to a DASH-Style Diet and Risk of Coronary Heart Disease and Stroke in Women
Somehow I don't see this diet catching on. I'd rather risk my health than live with a total sweets allotment is 5 tbs of Jelly per week.
It’s interesting.....70% of people on the Dash Diet for 3 months can get rid of their high blood pressure medicine...so I’ve heard quoted by a local doctor.
> The plan, called the DASH diet, favors fruits,
> vegetables, whole grains, low-fat milk and
> plant-based protein over meat.
What does it work out in terms of
percent of calories from:
carbs, fat, protein?
i.e., how does it compare to “balanced” 40-30-30
plans like Zone?
Both myself, my son and two friends, after blood pressure meds did diddly to bring down pressure - by loosing weight, all brought our pressure down to mid-normal - after having stopped the meds before that.
Picking one possible cause of death is not good science.
The only thing that matters is mortality rates for these different diets. For example they might not have heart trouble but instead get cancer.
The big one — results of the biggest clinical trial of healthy eating ever [Results - NO benefit]
"It was named the Women’s Health Initiative (WHI) Dietary Modification Trial. A total of 48,835 postmenopausal women (the age most associated the risk for developing heart disease and cancers) were randomly assigned (with each group well matched) to either their regular unrestricted diet or to a “healthy” diet that was low-fat (20% fat) and high fiber, with at least 5 servings of fruits and vegetables, and 6 servings of grains a day. The “healthy” eaters endured an “intense behavioral modification program by specially trained and certified professionals” to keep them on their diets. While they backslide a little, they did surprisingly well in sticking to the diet — as good as dietary prescripts will ever get and money can buy — at a cost of $8,498 spent per person!
Healthy eating proved to have no effect on cardiovascular disease. The researchers concluded: “a dietary intervention that reduced total fat intake and increased intakes of vegetables, fruits, and grains did not significantly reduce the risk of CHD, stroke, or CVD in postmenopausal women.” (And among the women who had heart disease at the beginning of the study, the low-fat diet slightly increased their risks for heart disease.) Not surprisingly, as recently reviewed, the body of evidence reviewed by the American Heart Association in looking for support for its “heart healthy” diets for the primary prevention of heart disease, found no support.
And that's not very good. I wonder if what the study demonstrates is the futility of standard dietary intervention techniques, not the futility of following a healthy diet.
Dietary change is extremely difficult even when people have strong motivation in the form of physical pain or the prospect of disability. I doubt that even the expensive methods used in this study were effective at inducing a significant dietary change that lasted for 8 years. It would be better to study a group of people who changed their dietary habits of their own volition or because of a religious conversion.
"Those are meaningful reductions since these diseases are so common. About two in five U.S. women at age 50 will eventually develop cardiovascular disease, which includes heart attacks and strokes."
Picking one possible cause of death is not good science.
The author picked the first and third causes of all cause mortality.
The only thing that matters is mortality rates for these different diets. For example they might not have heart trouble but instead get cancer.
Cancer is the second greatest cause of death, but it is such a heterogenous disease as there are about two hundred kinds of cancer, one for every type of cell in a body.
Heart disease: 652,091
Cancer: 559,312
Stroke (cerebrovascular diseases): 143,579
The author is writing for a general audience. Atherosclerosis of both the coronary and cerebral arteries is the common pathology usually found in "heart attacks" and strokes, but it isn't the only factor in heart disease or cerebrovascular accidents.
Thanks for the link, but this was the DASH diet with almost twice the sample, 88,000. You need to find the original article and see if this DASH diet was used.
It all seems to point to “inflammation”.....and I am probably a case study....having eaten “dash like” for 20 years or more, always exercised, etc.....and now for the 2nd time in 6 years undergoing nuclear heart stress test and echocardiogram next week.....they think I have a blockage....oh, and....I have cholesterol of 174.....but my CRP is at 2.6 ....up from pt 1 a few years ago...AND, I also have a grandfather who died in his sleep at age 50 (he was skinny). My husband says he’s giving up good eating if they find a blockage.....
Vitamin D And Calcium Influence Cell Death In The Colon, Researchers Find
FReepmail me if you want on or off my health and science ping list.
Thanks....
lift weights
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