HHS HealthBeat (February 8, 2010)

Three together

From the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, I’m Ira Dreyfuss with HHS HealthBeat.

Eating right helps, but being physically active and losing weight do even more for people who need to lower their high blood pressure. James Blumenthal of Duke University Medical Center tested that over four months on 144 overweight or obese people with high blood pressure.

About a third each got the National Institutes of Health’s DASH diet to lower blood pressure. Another third got exercise, plus the DASH diet and weight loss counseling. The rest just did what they usually did.

Blumenthal found:

[James Blumenthal speaks] ``A program including the DASH diet, plus exercise and weight loss clearly is beneficial – not only in terms of reducing blood pressure but improving cardiovascular biomarkers also associated with worse outcomes.’’

The study in Archives of Internal Medicine was supported by the National Institutes of Health.

Learn more at hhs.gov.

HHS HealthBeat is a production of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. I’m Ira Dreyfuss.

Last revised: May 7, 2011