A new study from Georgia State University has found that eating a plant-based diet could help prevent and even reverse a specific kind of heart disease in rats with high blood pressure.
This kind of disease, called coronary microvascular dysfunction (CMD), affects the small blood vessels that carry blood to the heart muscle. The study was published in the Journal of the American Heart Association.
CMD is a serious condition that can cause chest pain, heart failure, frequent hospital stays, and even death. It tends to affect women more severely than men, with women experiencing more hospitalizations. High blood pressure, or hypertension, is one of the main causes of CMD.
Right now, the treatments available for CMD don’t work very well, and many patients continue to have bad health outcomes. That’s why researchers are looking for new ways to treat the disease. This study is one of the first to test whether a plant-based diet could make a difference.
The research team found that rats fed a plant-based diet were protected from developing CMD. Even more impressive, rats that already had CMD got better after switching to the plant-based diet. These results suggest that diet could be a powerful way to fight this form of heart disease.
The plant-based diet used in the study was made up of 28% fruits, vegetables, nuts, and legumes. The rest of the diet was similar to the control diet, which lacked plant foods. Both diets were carefully matched for nutrients, so the main difference was that the plant-based diet was full of antioxidants.
For a human, the diet would be equal to eating one cup of black beans, one large red bell pepper, one and a half cups of Brussels sprouts, two lemons, one medium sweet potato, one and a half cups of walnuts, and one cup of blueberries every day.
Female rats with naturally high blood pressure were fed either the plant-based or control diet for six months. After six months, some rats that had been eating the control diet were switched to the plant-based one to see if it could treat already-existing CMD.
To measure the heart disease, the researchers used several methods. They measured something called coronary flow reserve, which is also used in human patients to check blood flow in the heart. They also used MRI scans to look at heart function and studied blood vessel cells to see how well they were working.
The researchers found that the plant-based diet helped the tiny blood vessels in the heart relax and let blood flow normally again, even though the rats still had high blood pressure. This shows the diet had a direct effect on the small blood vessels, helping them work better and reversing some of the damage.
Dr. Rami Najjar, one of the main researchers, said this is one of the first studies to show that diet alone can treat CMD. He believes the diet helps by improving how the blood vessel cells function, fighting off the damage caused by high blood pressure.
The team now hopes to test these findings in human clinical trials. If the results are the same in people, it could open the door to new, non-drug treatments for heart disease.
If you care about high blood pressure, please read studies that early time-restricted eating could help improve blood pressure, and natural coconut sugar could help reduce blood pressure and artery stiffness.
For more health information, please see recent studies about added sugar in your diet linked to higher blood pressure, and results showing vitamin D could improve blood pressure in people with diabetes.
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