Cardiovascular disease (CVD) is the leading cause of death in the United States.
Public health advocates frequently site Americans’ high-sodium diet as one factor in the nation’s cardiac health.
While sodium has been definitively linked to high blood pressure—a key risk factor for CVD—few rigorously controlled studies make the direct causal link between high sodium intake and cardiovascular damage, heart attack, or stroke.
In a new study from Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, researchers found that a common diet for lowering blood pressure also provides other heart-health benefits.
In the study, the team examined three cardiovascular biomarkers, which are measurable indicators of cardiovascular health in the blood, to determine whether diet directly impacts cardiac health.
They analyzed blood samples from clinical trial participants adhering to strict dietary regimens.
The team showed that a diet proven to lower elevated blood pressure, known as the DASH diet, reduces inflammation.
They also showed that the DASH diet, alone or in conjunction with a low-sodium diet, reduces heart injury and strain.
This study represents some of the strongest evidence that diet directly impacts cardiac damage, and these findings show that dietary interventions can improve heart risk factors in a relatively short time period.
The data reinforce the importance of a lifestyle that includes a reduced-sodium, DASH diet rich in fruits, vegetables and whole grains to minimize cardiac damage over time.
The DASH, or Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension, the diet has been proven to reduce blood pressure.
It emphasizes consuming fruits, vegetables, low-fat dairy products, whole grains, poultry, fish and nuts while limiting saturated fats, total fat, cholesterol, red meat, sweets and sugar-containing beverages.
Developed in the 1990s with the specific goal of lowering blood pressure, the well-studied diet has also been shown to prevent cancer, osteoporosis, diabetes, heart attack, stroke and cardiovascular disease.
If you care about blood pressure health, please read studies about this diet could lower blood pressure in older people in U.S. and findings of this surgery may help treat high blood pressure.
For more information about high blood pressure and prevention and treatment, please see recent studies about the connection between diabetes, kidney disease and high blood pressure and results showing that common high blood pressure drugs may reduce inflammation in liver disease.
The study is published in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology. One author of the study is Stephen Juraschek, MD, Ph.D.
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