In each ADA survey since 1991, ADA has used respondents’ answers to a number of different questions to segment consumers into three groups representing people’s overall attitudes toward maintaining a healthy diet and getting regular exercise:

• I’m Already Doing It: Consumers who feel that maintaining a healthy diet and regular exercise are very important; are concerned about diet, nutrition and overall fitness; and feel they are doing all they can to eat a healthy diet.
• I Know I Should: Consumers who feel that maintaining a healthy diet and regular exercise are very important, but may not have taken significant actions to do all they can to eat a healthy diet.
• Don’t Bother Me: People who do not feel diet and exercise are very important to them and are the least concerned with their overall nutrition and fitness.

Results of ADA’s 2008 survey show the percentage of people in the Don’t Bother Me category has dropped substantially, especially from 2002 (32%) to 2008 (19%). "This is the first year the Don’t Bother Me group has represented less than one-third of the population," said registered dietitian and American Dietetic Association spokesperson Jeannie Gazzaniga-Moloo. She noted that the segment had been as large as 40 percent in the mid-1990s.

"The steady increases we are seeing among the I’m Already Doing It segment appear to represent movement away from Don’t Bother Me, while the I Know I Should remain relatively constant – 38% in 2008, and 30% in 2002.

"These trends tell us people are paying more attention to their nutritional and physical activity needs and are increasingly doing what they need to do to eat right and be healthy," Gazzaniga-Moloo said.

"The findings indicate there will likely always be a core group of consumers who remain in the Don’t Bother Me segment, so our challenge as registered dietitians is to move as many people as possible, through healthful eating messages and nutrition-related health-care services, from I Know I Should – the people who ‘get it’ – into I’m Already Doing It," Gazzaniga-Moloo said.

According to ADA’s 2008 survey, two-thirds of consumers said diet and nutrition are "very important" to them personally (67%), and three in five said physical activity is very important (61%). This continues an upward trend that has been occurring since ADA’s first survey in 1991.

"It’s great to see these trends continue to head upward, but there is definitely still room for improvement in Americans’ eating and physical activity habits," Gazzaniga-Moloo said.

Women were more likely than men to say diet and physical activity both are very important, while younger adults were much less likely than older people to consider diet and nutrition very important. Meanwhile, physical activity is seen as very important by all age groups, representing slight but consistent increases in recent years.

And people with a college education and beyond were more likely to say diet and nutrition are very important than people with a high school degree or less.

The American Dietetic Association is the world’s largest organization of food and nutrition professionals. ADA is committed to improving the nation’s health and advancing the profession of dietetics through research, education and advocacy. Visit the American Dietetic Association at http://www.eatright.org.

Source: ScienceDaily.com

Diet is one of the major risk factors for cancer in Western societies. But it’s not just about what we eat too much of. It’s also about the foods we should learn to add to our table every day.

In his $40M laboratory at the University of Montreal, Dr. Richard Beliveau used to test new drugs that may help treat cancer. One day, tugged by children with leukemia who stopped him in the corridor of the hospital to ask if he had something new for them to use, he started experimenting with simple food extracts. Beliveau discovered that many simple food extracts had anticancer properties as powerful as many of the drugs he had been testing for the past 30 years.

Lenny, one of his friends, learned that he had pancreatic cancer. His wife begged Beliveau to help her design an anticancer diet. She fed Lenny, every day, three times a day, with foods that all had been tested for their anticancer properties. Lenny lived five years beyond his prognosis.

Today, the MD Anderson Cancer Center, the largest cancer research institution in the world, is also exploring this avenue. Long used in Ayurvedic medicine in India, the common spice turmeric (one of the main spices in curry) has been found to contain the most potent natural antiinflammatory ever described — the molecule “curcumin.” Researchers at MD Anderson have shown that it inhibits cancer growth by not only reducing inflammation (necessary for invasion of neighboring tissues) but by inducing cancer cell death (“apoptosis”), slowing down the growth of new blood vessels necessary for tumor expansion (“angiogenesis”), and increasing the efficacy of chemotherapy. This research was recently reviewed in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute (2008).

Researchers at the Karolinska Institute (which awards the Nobel Prize) in Sweden have also shown that the polyphenols of green tea inhibit the progression of cancer. It can increase, too, the efficacy of radiotherapy. Women in Japan who drink more than three cups of green tea per day reduce their risk of breast cancer relapse. Men reduce their chance of seeing prostate cancer advance to a dangerous stage.

Eating at least five fruits and vegetables per day contributes greatly to the reduction of cancer risk.

The World Cancer Research Fund confirmed in its October 2007 report that 40 percent of cancers could be avoided with a more adequate diet and a bit more physical activity. And that these same lifestyle choices should be an integral part of any treatment of cancer. It stated as a goal no more than 12 ounces of red meat per week. The current American diet is close to 11 ounces per day.

The single most important feature in an anticancer diet is to reverse the proportions of a typical American meal: Make the core of your plate vegetables (and fruits), and use meat only to enhance flavor. Legumes (peas, beans, lentils, etc.) and soy (tofu, tempeh, miso, edamame etc.) offer the same proteins as meat but combined with cancer-fighting phytochemicals.

It’s also important to replace desserts (refined sugar) with fruits as often as possible. Berries, for example, contain anthocyanidins that directly help kill cancer cells and reduce the growth of abnormal blood vessels. Tangerines and their special flavonoids also act against cancer cells. All brightly colored fruits contain flavonoids that contribute to slowing down cancer growth. Agave syrup (which does not raise blood sugar or insulin) is a wonderful way to replace sugar for those who can’t do without the sweet taste.

All omega-6 oils (soybean, corn, sunflower) should be reduced or eliminated and replaced with olive oil, canola oil, or flaxseed oil. Omega-3 butter or margarine is also acceptable.

Animal products (meat, dairy, eggs) should be grass-fed or labeled “omega-3 rich,” and preferably organic so as to avoid growth hormone (that can stimulate cancer cell growth too).

Organic vegetables and fruits are preferable to nonorganic, but, as Dr. Beliveau likes to point out, “it’s better to eat broccoli with a few residues of pesticides on it than to not eat broccoli.”

And benefits from an anticancer diet are immediate. Within months, we can see our blood sugar go down, our waist thinning, our blood pressure improve, and we feel more energetic and less afflicted by little pains of life we had started to take for granted such as heartburn and joint pains… It’s not just about cancer. It’s about nourishing life in us.

Copyright 2008 David Servan-Schreiber, MD, PhD

So take stock of your eating preferences and lifestyle when you choose a diet. Your ability to stay with it long term depends in part on whether it fits easily into your lifestyle and doesn’t leave you feeling deprived. So if your job requires four-night-a-week client dinners, then ultra-low-fat options might be hard to manage. But it’s not hard to find a diet in which you add healthy omega-3 fats, such as salmon or mahi mahi or halibut, to your life. If you don’t know how to turn on an oven, choose something that lets you rely on prepared foods. Also consider whether you’ll feel deprived by the elimination of a food group if you choose a diet that requires that (although we don’t recommend it, unless you consider Nilla Wafers and french fries to be food groups).

So don’t let the endless weight-loss options give you diet paralysis. Pick a program with a combination of balanced, nutritious eating habits and regular exercise (of course, we’re partial to the YOU Diet! That’s our easy and tasty version of Mediterranean remade for American and Canadian tastes), and you’ll triumph in the game of healthy waist size for life.

TO SUBMIT QUESTIONSTO Mike Roizen and Mehmet Oz — the YOU DOCS — visit RealAge.com, the docs’ online home. The doctors are authors of "YOU: The Owner’s Manual" and "YOU: On a Diet."

White rice, bread from refined flour,beets, carrots, refined sugar, corn syrup, molasses,honey, sugared colas, corn, and beer.

10 Steps To Eliminate Sugar from Your Diet

1. Admit you eat sugar in tremendous portions every day!

2. Believe that you can eliminate refined sugar from your diet!

3. Ask your doctor or health care provider if eliminating refined sugar from your diet will be beneficial for you.

4. Check with relatives, friends & family members to see if they eat foods that are high in sugar. Discuss your past diets of high sugar items. Tell them your plan for eliminating certain high sugar foods from your diet. Ask them to tell you about their daily sugar intake.

5. Discuss your plans to eliminate certain high sugar foods from your diet with your doctor or health care provider.

6. Be ready to change your lifestyle and eating habits. You cannot expect different results by doing the same things over and over!

7. Ask your doctor, healthcare provider, friends and family members how you can change your previous bad habits & replace them with new ones.

8. List items that need to be thrown out and replaced in your refrigerator and cabinets. Use Stevia, a natural sweetener, to replace refined sugar. Read all labels at the grocery store for sugar content. Hint: try all fresh fruits, vegetables, whole grains and organic dairy products and organic meats. Add supplements like Multi Vitamins, Vitamin E, B complex, Vitamin C to your diet.

9. Complete a full day without eating any refined sugar. Have another friend try this new diet with you for support & encouragement.

10. Continue to change your eating habits little by little. It will take awhile before your habits become established. Be patient. If you eat a dessert item, forgive yourself. Try to do better each day. Strive for progress, not perfection.

After you eliminate most refined sugar from your diet, have your doctor take your blood tests with your new diet in mind. You will see an improvement of 40 to 60 precent in your test results! Pass this information on to everyone you know! You have my permission to reprint, reproduce, and forward to your friends and relatives.

While weight-loss programs and products are still an estimated $58 billion industry, the number of people dieting is dropping, according to market-research firm NPD Group. Among a group of 5,000 consumers, in 1990 39% of the women and 29% of the men claimed to be on a diet; today, the numbers are 26% and 16%, respectively.

Instead, these people appear more interested in eating whole grains, fiber and omega-3 fatty acids than following the latest diet craze. That may be a good thing, but new research has found that some diets are more effective than was previously realized. Important–perhaps as much as what diet you choose–is how you choose a program.

The study, published in the New England Journal of Medicine this summer, followed more than 300 moderately obese Israelis for two years, assigning them to one of three diets: a low-fat, calorie-restricted diet; a Mediterranean diet high in fiber; and a low-carb diet.

Although we’ve been conditioned to think that low-fat diets are the best way to lose weight, the results didn’t bear that out. On average, those on the low-fat diet only lost 6.5 pounds, compared with 10 pounds on the Mediterranean diet and 10.3 pounds on the low-carb diet.

While the diets proved equal at helping inflammatory and liver function biomarkers, other results varied greatly. The low-carb diet increased levels of good cholesterol and cut levels of atherosclerosis-causing triglycerides the most. The low-fat diet increased fasting glucose, high levels of which are a sign of diabetes, while the Mediterranean diet caused a decrease.

"The importance of this study," says Iris Shai, the study’s leader and a researcher at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, "is that there is no one solution for everybody."

Sticking With the Program

In fact, experts say a wide variety of diets can work–if only people can choose programs that are sustainable for them and find ways to stick it out.

People commonly derail their diets from the get-go, says Heidi Skolnik, a certified nutritionist and health-fitness instructor at the Hospital for Special Surgery, by having unrealistic expectations about how much weight they’ll lose–and how quickly they’ll do so. They also want the process to be easy. When that doesn’t happen, they give up and move on to the next thing, a process that isn’t good for the body or mind.

"Yo-yo dieting messes with your head," Skolnik says. "It’s very demoralizing. Each new time, you’re more reluctant to get your hopes up, and it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy."

Skolnik recommends figuring out your ideal body, taking into account your height and frame, and then thinking about what’s going to be realistic for you to achieve and maintain.

You’ve also got to consider your food preferences, goals and diet histories and consult your doctor before starting anything, says Shai. For instance, if a diet calls for you to cut back on your carbs drastically and you love bread and pasta, the likelihood of your success is low. As great as a diet may be, if you can’t think about it as a long-term strategy, it’s probably not worth trying. Likewise, if you want to lower your cholesterol levels or control your diabetes, you’ll want to factor that into your decision. And if you’ve tried diets in the past and failed to see results–who hasn’t?–examine what went wrong.

What kind of diet has worked for you? Weigh in. Add your thoughts in the Reader Comments section below.

Your personality plays a role, too, Skolnik says. Do you respond better in situations that are structured or more flexible? Do you perform better when you’re backed by a support network or when you’re on your own? Honestly answering these questions can help you figure out if you would be better off buying a diet book or participating in a weight-loss program that offers regular meetings.

Before choosing a diet you should also look for a few key factors, says Stacey Snelling, a registered dietitian and an associate professor at American University in the health and fitness department. Those include scientific evidence backing up the diet’s effectiveness and some component of physical activity to help you maintain your weight loss down the road. On the other hand, diets that recommend the use of supplements are worth questioning since they might be lacking in nutritional adequacy. Furthermore, it’s not clear whether pills provide the same health benefits as the foods from which they’re derived.

The Bottom Line

For those who are still dieting, or whose ears can’t help but perk up when news of the next diet fad hits, there is hope. It’s possible dieters can improve their odds of success, experts say, if they spend time upfront making sure they pick sound diets that match their goals and personalities.

"You should know which diet you can live with," Shai says, "not a dramatic diet for the short term, but for the long term."

Source: Forbes

This information also suggests that the reverse may be true as well—high fat diets may help prevent undersized babies.

"Our model may one day lead to dietary recommendations for mothers who are entering pregnancy overweight or obese," said Helen N. Jones, Ph.D., first author of the study. "We hope this research will ultimately help reduce the number of babies suffering from birth injuries, decrease C-section rates, and lower the risk of babies becoming overweight or obese later in life."

To reach their conclusion, the researchers fed one group of mice a normal diet and another group a higher fat diet for eight weeks. Then the mice were mated. At the end of each mouse’s pregnancy the offspring were delivered by c-section and weighed along with their placentas. The scientists then took blood from the mothers and measured the ability of the placenta to transport nutrients to the babies.

"It’s no secret that big women tend to have big babies," said Gerald Weissmann, M.D., Editor-in-Chief of The FASEB Journal, "but now we know that there’s more at play than genetics. Cutting back on fatty foods during pregnancy might decrease the chance of having a baby that becomes overweight in the future."

According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, about one-third of adult men and women, and 16.3 percent of children and youth in the United States are obese. Obesity increases the risk of many diseases and health conditions, including: hypertension, osteoarthritis (breakdown of cartilage and its underlying bone in a joint), dyslipidemia (high total cholesterol, high levels of triglycerides), type 2 diabetes, coronary heart disease, stroke, gallbladder disease, sleep apnea and respiratory problems, and some cancers.

Adapted from materials provided by Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology, via EurekAlert!, a service of AAAS.

Source: sciencedaily.com

In this way – and only in this way – he’s like Charles Saatchi, the millionaire ad-man and art collector, whose wife, Nigella Lawson, has revealed that her husband’s recent massive weight loss is down to a strict diet of nine eggs a day. He ate three for breakfast, three for dinner, three for supper and nothing else for nine months and lost a whopping four stone.
It’s crazy, but I applaud the man’s willpower. How difficult must it be to lose serious amounts of weight when you’ve got Britain’s most famous domestic goddess slinking around the house, licking whipped cream off her fingers and purring about the joys of tiramisu?

Nevertheless, he did it and his new, somewhat gaunt look (scarily like Nigella’s dad, Nigel, who lost several stone on a similarly draconian eating regime a few years ago) is testament to his alpha-male ability to create a new reality for himself, however much that new reality might smell of sulphur and make his wife describe him as "grumpy and crotchety".

Saatchi’s doctor despaired at such unhealthy eating habits, saying: "It’s neck-and-neck whether Charles keels over or loses the weight first," but somehow Saatchi survived the bizarre nine-eggs-a-day diet and now, with the date of a kilt-wearing wedding approaching, I can tell my husband is thinking about trying it too.

Men and women tend to diet very differently. Unless we’re Hollywood stars and need to lose a stone in ten minutes or we’ll never work again, women generally choose boring, eat-less, exercise-more options, which involve meeting other women, drinking Diet Coke and moaning about how difficult it all is.

We compare diets endlessly; we weigh up calories; use points systems; stretch our legs behind our heads, or feel the burn. We worry about whether we’re absorbing enough chromium and painstakingly juggle menus to make sure we’re getting our five a day.

Traditionally, women are supposed to be the weight obsessives, but when it comes to sheer, fanatical, single-minded self-reduction, the boys win almost every time.

All dieters want the quickest fix possible, but men seem to want it even quicker than women, so they’re much happier than we are to risk their long-term health in the quest to achieve a thinner tomorrow, today.

I’ve noticed male dieters are particularly seduced by the stringent, all-or-nothing approach. I know women who’ve tried things like the cabbage soup diet, the maple syrup diet, or nothing-but-cucumber, but these methods are usually employed as short-burst slimming strategies within a wider game plan.

Admittedly, Saatchi’s diet lasted much longer than the average male’s weight-loss regime, but I’m guessing now he’s triumphed, it’s possible he’s already edging towards the kind of eating patterns that got him into trouble in the first place.
A male friend recently ate only soup and water for a month. He did it alone and hardly ventured outside the house, but that was all part of the mastery-of-self battle he was waging. The results are stunning, but typical of the extreme masculine dieting patterns I keep coming across, which never seem to be about making small yet meaningful changes to your lifestyle, or simply eating slightly less.

For example, my husband is currently trying the Stone Age diet. If it’s authentic, then stone-age man took absolutely no exercise and sat around his cave all day bingeing on burgers (without the bun).

So far, the effects on his waistline have been minimal, but he says he likes it because it’s simple and it means he doesn’t have to think about recipes, or anything boring like that.

And that sums it up, really. When men want to lose fat, they want to do it simply, spectacularly quickly, and with no thought for the future of their bodies. Which is why I’m worried by the return of my brother-in-law from Nepal, looking unusually svelte. An attack of Kathmandu colon caused him to lose two stone in as many weeks and my husband is impressed. "It’s perfect!" he enthused. "You go somewhere exotic, eat whatever you like, and lose loads of weight just by sitting down! It’s the perfect diet!"

I can see there’s only one thing that might stop this madness – I’ll have to buy him a new kilt.

Source: The Scotsman

"Eww" and "Yuck" came the replies as students watched their science teacher chew and swallow the vegetable.

Many of them, who are between the ages of 10 and 13, had never witnessed the growth of the vegetable, while others had never tasted one.

Lack of exposure to fresh fruits and vegetables is something Cherry and others at the school noticed among the middle school students. To help show that there are healthier snack options, the school applied for and was awarded a grant that provides healthy snacks to students.

The school is tucked away in an affluent West Meade neighborhood. But a lot of the students had bad diets, regularly snacking on potato chips, candy and cookies.

At home, eighth-grader Brayden Stewart rarely eats healthy foods.

"Junk food is really all I eat, and maybe sometimes oranges," the 13-year-old said.

And it’s not uncommon for eighth-grader Kiebron Negasi to have a diet of processed foods, his favorite being chocolate chip cookies as a snack after school.

Initiatives are launched

The consumption of processed foods among school-age children is spurring "healthy initiatives" like the Fresh Fruit and Vegetable Program at H.G. Hill Middle.

With the help of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the school received a grant of nearly $50,000 to provide healthy snacks of cherry tomatoes, blackberries, pears and other foods to the 400-plus students during the school year.

In many areas, there are no grocery stores nearby that offer reasonably priced healthy food options. Many of the students are used to their fruits and vegetables in cans, Cherry said. "The parents don’t have access to those healthy foods, and they’re limited to canned foods that are not fresh," he said.

At first, the students were a little unsure when the carts of blueberries, strawberries and broccoli wheeled into their classrooms, and Cherry has the pictures to prove it.

The teacher’s photos, taken the first day of the new program, show the middle-schoolers hesitating. They stand back from the cart, their hands held protectively close.

"At first I was kind of confused," said eighth-grader Latazia Carter.

"I thought they were going to pass out junk food," Brayden admitted.

But over time, the students got used to seeing the cart with the fresh fruits and vegetables.

Carolyn Dillahay, cafeteria manager at the school, said she has already seen the success of the program among the students.

The offering of healthier food options "opens their eyes and lets them know that there are good snacks out there," Dillahay said, watching as a teacher wheeled into the cafeteria an almost-empty cart that held the fruits and veggies.

The plums seem to be less popular among the students, but strawberries go quickly, as do the peaches and nectarines.

"Seeing how well they’ve accepted it is what does it for me," Dillahay said.

Contact Leah Caudle at 615-259-8066 or lcaudle@tennessean.com.

Source: tennessean.com

In her new cookbook, “Fat: An Appreciation of a Misunderstood Ingredient, With Recipes,” chef, food stylist and writer Jennifer McLagan challenges medical studies that have linked diet to heart disease.

McLagan, whose first book “Bones” won a James Beard Award in 2006, said that up until the last few decades, fat has always had positive connotations, and that the more people deprived themselves of ingredients such as butter, lard and chicken skin, the fatter and sicker they have become.

McLagan insists animal fats are not only essential to cooking delicious food, but – in moderation – are more easily digested than the alternatives and have other health benefits, like boosting the immune system and lowering bad cholesterol.

McLagan, 54, who lives in Toronto but grew up in Melbourne, Australia, spoke to Reuters about debunking fat phobias.

Q: What inspired you to write a book about fat?

A: “After ‘Bones,’ someone said what are you going to write next and I said well I’m going to do the trilogy — skin and fat. So I thought, skin, that’s a little slim, that book. But I thought about fat and I thought about how I’ve never really stopped eating fat.

“I guess I escaped Australia in the ’70s and ended up in France up to my armpits in pork fat and beef fat and duck fat, so I never got that margarine kind of scare thing and it never stopped me. But then when I started thinking about it, I thought, oh, I still had that thing, like I would have that reaction to a well marbled steak or a slice of pork belly thinking, ooh, there’s a lot of fat there. I knew that’s where the flavor was but I wanted to find out more about it.”

Q: Why has fat gotten a bad rap?

A: “I think it was just misassociated. People were trying to find a reason for the increase in heart attacks and heart disease in the middle of the last century and scientists were looking for a reason and certain theories were proposed. And these were always theories and like everybody, they manipulated the facts to fit.

“So they picked out these things and they said animal fat was bad for you and if you ate animal fat you know it will increase your cholesterol, increase your risk of heart attack, but it was never proved. It was only an associated thing. It was never causal. They left out the French, they left out the Inuit, they left out any population that didn’t fit into their plan. That was the first thing. And then when the U.S. Congress (adopted it), we started to believe our government rather than our grandmother about what we should eat.”

Q: How do you hope to change people’s perception of fat?

A: “There’s this association that fat goes from your lips to your hips. And that’s not true. Eating fat does not make you fat. Eating too much, too many calories, too much sugar, too many carbs, makes you fat. I’d like to argue eating fat makes you lose weight because you’re so satisfied eating fat you don’t snack and you don’t eat too much of whatever you’re eating.”

Q: What is your favorite fat to cook with?

A: “I love duck fat to cook potatoes. There is nothing better than, of course if you can get goose fat or foie gras fat, but they’re all the same family. Potatoes cooked in duck fat because duck fat has a rich sweetness. And my new latest favorite fat, well I used to always use suet, which is the kidney fat, from the veal or the beef because I grew up with mincemeat … And one of the things I did when I was doing “Fat,” just for interest, I made what I would call scones or tea biscuits with butter, lard, duck fat, suet, baked them all off and I gave them to people to eat to see which ones they would like and you know the one with suet is just amazingly light.”

Q: How much fat do you eat?

A: “Probably more than a lot of people but not an obscene amount, because it’s not like I’m pouring it on absolutely everything that I eat. But I’m definitely not scared of it. I’m quite happy to have it on things, but like I said, two slices of pork belly and, uncle, I can’t eat anymore. Whereas I could probably eat five or six slices of pork tenderloin if I let myself.”

Bacon Mayonnaise

Author’s note: Is it possible to improve upon a classic BLT? I think so, by adding another layer of flavor with my bacon mayonnaise. The recipe makes about enough for four sandwiches. It’s best to use it all up as the bacon fat will turn it solid in the refrigerator.

Makes about 1/2 cup/125 ml

1 egg yolk

3/4 teaspoon Dijon mustard

1 teaspoon freshly squeezed lemon juice

Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper

1/2 cup/125 ml liquid bacon

Combine the egg yolk, mustard, and lemon juice in the small bowl of a food processor or in a blender and process to mix. Season with salt and pepper. Have the bacon fat liquid, but not hot. With the machine running, gradually add the bacon fat until the mixture starts to stiffen and emulsify, about two minutes. Once it starts to emulsify, you can add the fat more quickly. If the mayonnaise is too thick, just blend in one teaspoon of boiling water to thin it. Taste and adjust the seasoning.

Source: abs-cbnnews.com

For the study, a team of researchers from the University of Alabama enrolled 13 patients with resistant high blood pressure who were taking at least three blood-pressure-lowing medications. The participants were randomly assigned to a high- or low-salt diet and then monitored using a recorder worn continuously for 24 hours. Researchers found that those on the low-salt diet saw a 22.6 mmHg drop in the systolic (top number representing pressure while the heart contracts) blood pressure, along with a 9.2 mmHg drop in their diastolic blood pressure (bottom number representing the pressure when the heart relaxes between beats), as compared to patients on the high-salt diet. The amount of sodium excreted in their urine was also markedly reduced. Overall, the patients on the low-salt diet reported a better health state than the others, with appropriate body weight and levels of thoracic fluid and brain natriuretic peptide, which are two parameters that indicate fluid retention in the body.

The study team concludes that these findings clearly demonstrate the harmful effects of a high-salt diet in people with stubborn hypertension, as well as the benefits of a low-salt diet. “The blood pressure reduction achieved with low-salt diet was higher than some antihypertensive drugs,” said lead researcher Dr. Eduardo Pimenta, now at the Department of Hypertension and Nephrology at the Dante Pazzanese Institute of Cardiology in Sao Paulo, Brazil. “We were expecting blood pressure reduction with low-salt diet but the reduction was larger than we expected.”

Dr. Gregg C. Fonarow, professor of cardiology at the University of California, Los Angeles, called the study “small, but interesting” and agreed that salt reduction could have a substantial impact on lowering blood pressure for patients with medication-resistant high blood pressure. “Excess sodium intake, above 2,300 milligrams daily, should be avoided in all patients with hypertension, and among those patients with medically resistant hypertension, a closely monitored low-salt diet (1,500 milligrams daily) should be considered,” he advised.

The American Heart Association (AHA) says simple dietary changes to reduce salt consumption will only help in averting high blood pressure, but also its adverse effects like heart disease. The AHA recommends 2,300 milligrams (mg) of salt per day (which equates to about one teaspoon), or 2,000 mg for people suffering from high blood pressure or congestive heart failure. Recent studies have also shown that blood pressure can be lowered by following the Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension (DASH) eating plan, which offer a week of menus as well as recipes for two levels of daily sodium consumption—2,300 and 1,500 milligrams per day. Twenty-three hundred milligrams is the highest level considered acceptable by the National High Blood Pressure Education Program and also the highest amount recommended for healthy Americans by the 2005 “U.S. Dietary Guidelines for Americans.”

High blood pressure is clearly a major public health problem. According to recent estimates, approximately one in three adults in the United States as well as two million American teens and children has high blood pressure, but because there are often no symptoms, nearly one-third of people are unaware they have it. The only certain way to tell if you have high blood pressure is to have your pressure checked. Most people can control high blood pressure if they maintain a healthy weight, be moderately physically active on most days of the week, follow a healthy eating plan that includes foods lower in sodium, avoid alcoholic beverages or consume then in moderation, and take blood-pressure-lowering medications as directed.

The details of the study were presented at the American Heart Association’s Fall Conference of the Council for High Blood Pressure Research.

Source: healthnews.com