Got hypertension? Cut down the amount of carbs in your diet and you’ll stand a good chance of lowering your high blood pressure.

While this will not come as earth shattering news to many of the already-health-conscious, they’ll be happy to know that their suspicions have been confirmed by a recent study.

The study showed that overweight or obese individuals who cut down significantly on carbs in their diets lost about the same amount of weight as those who reduced fat intake and took certain weight loss drugs.

The study also indicated however, that those who avoided a lot of carbs also lowered their high blood pressure.

The research team led by William S. Yancy Jr. of the VA Medical Center in Durham, North Carolina studied participants with common conditions like diabetes and heart disease. In similar previous studies, participants were overweight or obese volunteers who were healthy except for a high body mass index.

People with certain health issues usualy weren’t recruited for weight loss studies, Yancy said.

Yancy and members of his team tested 146 patients. Some received instruction on eating a low-carbohydrate diet. These started out by eating fewer than 20 grams of carbohydrate daily.

Other took 120 mg of a weight loss drug called orlistat three times a day and ate a lower calorie, lower-fat diet.

After almost a year, the low-carb group had lost about 9.5 percent of their body weight, compared to 8.5 percent for the orlistat group. By itself, there wasn’t a significant difference. Both groups also showed some improvement in their blood cholesterol levels.

But those on the low carb diet experienced about a 6 percent drop in their systolic blood pressure and a 4.5 point drop in their diastolic pressure (the lower number).

In contrast, there was almost no blood pressure reduction in the the orlistat group: 1.5 (systolic) and 0.4 (diastolic).

According to Yancy, the two “fairly powerful weight loss treatments were equally effective, and one of them was more effective for lowering high blood pressure,” Yancy said.

Those in the orlistat group were more likely to report gas, bowel incontinence, and diarrhea than those in the low-carb group. Orlistat works by blocking the body’s absorption of fat from food so people who use it must reduce their fat intake or risk unpleasant side effects like gas and even incontinence.

Related information is available by clicking on blood pressure foods, and foods that lower blood pressure.

Tags: blood pressure, high blood pressure, low carb diet, lower blood pressure

This entry was posted on Friday, February 5th, 2010 at 7:22 am and is filed under Blood Pressure News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.