fruit/veggies lower bp

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http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A33535-2002Nov9.html

The Lean Plate Club: A Positive Pressure to Eat More Fruit

By Sally Squires

Washington Post Staff Writer

Tuesday, November 12, 2002; Page HE02

If you're looking for more motivation to eat

those five servings a day of fruit and

vegetables, here's something that may help: A

growing body of evidence suggests that

people who eat enough fruit and vegetables to

meet the daily requirements for vitamin C

have healthier blood pressure levels than those

who skimp on these important foods.

In a study published ealier this year, Gladys

Block, professor of public health nutrition at

the University of California, Berkeley, took a

group of healthy men with normal blood

pressure and fed them a diet low in vitamin C

for 30 days. For the next 30 days, the men ate

food high enough in vitamin C to provide 117

milligrams a day. That slightly exceeds the

recommended intake set by the National

Academy of Sciences, which is 90 milligrams

for men (or roughly that found in 6 ounces of

orange juice) and 75 milligrams per day for

women ages 19 and older.

Blood pressure was checked throughout the

study. Block found that diastolic blood

pressure-that's the pressure exerted on blood

vessel walls when the heart rests between

beats, and it's the lower number in a blood

pressure reading-rose and fell signifigantly

along with the intake of foods rich in vitamin

C. As she reported in the ls of the New

York Academy of Sciences, people with the

lowest vitamin C blood levels " had the highest

blood pressure one month later. " In fact, those

with the very lowest blood levels of citamin C

had diastolic blood pressure that was 7

milligrams higher than participants in the

study who had the greatest intake of vitamin

C.

The study also looked at age, body mass

index and intake of additional key nutrients,

including calcium, fiber, sodium and potassium and

found that all were less powerful in affecting

blood pressure than foods containing vitamin C. (And

Block says she has recently completed a study of

women that found similar effects.)

Estimates are that the average intake for Americans

is about 100 milligrams of vitamin C per day-

enough to meet the recommended daily intake. But

Block notes that this average " obscures the fact

that substantial numbers of people actually have

habitually low intake levels " of vitamin C. Among

the groups that often fall short are African

Americans, who also have a high incidence of high blood

pressure. Block's theory? " Low intake of

antioxidant-rich fruit and vegetables may be one of the

causes of hypertension, " she suggests.

There's plenty of reason to pay attention to that

finding even if you're not yet one of the estimated

50 million Americans with hypertension. Being

overweight or obese increases the risk of high

blood pressure. Blood pressure levels also rise

with age, and an estimated 23 million Americans

already have high-normal blood pressure (that means

a systolilc pressure of 130 to 139 milligrams

and/or diastolic of 85 to 89 milligrams). People

with high-normal blood pressure are up to 2.5

times more likely to suffer a heart attack, stroke

or other cardiovascular problem within the next 10

years than those with normal pressure, according to

the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute

(NHLBI).

The good news: Eating five servings of varied fruit

and vegetables a day-an important part of the

Lean Plate Club approach-provides about 200

milligrams of vitamin C, according to Mark Levine,

chief of molecular and clinical nutrition at the

National Institute of Diabetes, Digestive and Kidney

Diseases. (A serving is equal to one medium piece

of fruit, a quarter-cup of dried fruit, a half-cup of

fresh, frozen or canned fruit, or 6 ounces of

vegetable or fruit juice.)

And if you're looking for more ways to stay healthy

by eating a well-balanced diet, take a look at the

Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension (DASH)- a

reduced-fat program developed by the

NHLBI

(www.nhlbi.nih.gov/health/public/heart/hdp/index/htm) that fits very well

with the Lean

Plate Club goals. In DASH, the goal is to eat

low-calorie, filling foods in place of high-calorie fare.

DASH includes nine to 10 servings a day of fruit

and vegetables as well as whole grains, low-fat or

nonfate dairy products, fish, poultry and lean

meat, plus about a serving a dayof nuts or beans. Fat

is limited to about 27 percent of daily calories,

with no more than 7 percent of calories from

saturated fat.

Studies show that DASH not only substantially

lowers blood pressure but also reduces blood

cholesterol levels and cuts homocysteine-another

risk factor for heart disease. " the nice thing about

DASH is that you get a lot of food, " says

Roccella, coordinator of the NHLBI's National

High Blood Pressure Education Program. That's

because many of the foods included in the DASH

program-especially fruit and vegetables and whole

grains-are lower in calories than high-fat foods,

so it's possible to eat more of them. And since

they are high in volume and fiber, they also may

make you feel fuller.

Losing weight helps lower blood pressure, so people

in the DASH studies were directed to maintain

their weight-and didn't have trouble doing so. But

even without weight loss, the studies found that

" everyone benefited [from DASH], including who

didn't have high blood pressure, " notes Eva

Obarzanek, project officer for the DASH program.

The next step? To see, Obarzanek says, if DASH can

be used to help people lose weight as well as

keep blood pressure at healthy levels.