EASY AND SAFE WAY TO LOWER BP. ALSO CHEAPER TOO.

I have always been an advocate of life style modification in the management of non-communicable diseases. Drugs should always be an adjunct to life style modification, which is cheaper in the long run, safer and has more sustained effect. Pushing pills may be necessary for a while, but lifestyle must sustain us.
Anyway, I came across an interesting piece of work ( simple work ), coming out of Osaka Japan. The lead author is Dr Yoko Yokoyama from the Cerebral and Cardiovascular Center, in Osaka Japan. The paper is entitled simply " Vegetarian Diet and blood pressure".  This paper was published in the Feb 24th issue of Journal of the American Medical Association.
The authors looked through 250 clinical research papers, selected 6 randomised clinical trials and 32 observational studies on this topic of vegetarian diet and BP. These involved thousands of patients.

Blood pressure reductions with vegetarian diets, compared with omnivorous diets 

Study type                                     Systolic, mm Hg                Diastolic, mm Hg               p

Pooled clinical trials                                     -4.8                                  -2.2               <0 .001="" o:p="">

Pooled observational studies                        -6.9                                  -4.7               <0 .001="" b="">

They found that vegetarian dieted lowers BP in all the studies, more so with data from observational studies, and less so with the six randomised controlled trials, as shown in the table above. Looks like green leafy veges are good for health with less calories and less salt when compared to meat and preserved food. The fact that veges also has more potassium salt and less sodium salt must also make a difference.

Having known this fact, I suppose public health leaders must see if advocating a greener diet will help prevent hypertension. That fact must be established as I am certain that it will prevent many stroke deaths and disability.