Many With High Blood Pressure Shun Heart-Healthy Diet

More people might comply if nutritious foods were cheaper, one expert says

By Ed Edelson
HealthDay Reporter

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SUNDAY, May 20 (HealthDay News) -- A strange thing happened after government recommendations on a healthy diet designed to control high blood pressure were issued in 1999: The percentage of Americans with high blood pressure following those recommendations went down, according to a new study.

The fact that so few people with hypertension -- just 22 percent in the group studied -- are following some simple dietary measures indicates a breakdown somewhere in the American health-care system, said lead researcher Dr. Philip Mellen, an assistant professor of internal medicine at Wake Forest University School of Medicine in Winston-Salem, N.C.

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"We don't know where it broke down," Mellen said. "We don't know whether their physicians have been telling them to do it or whether physicians don't feel they know enough to counsel them. We have evidence from other sources that there are problems all along the chain."

The problem is a serious one: Left unchecked, hypertension -- the formal name for high blood pressure -- is a major cause of heart attack and stroke.

Mellen's study, which was to be presented Sunday at the annual meeting of the American Society of Hypertension, focused on people who had been told they had high blood pressure.

"Presumably, the guidelines should have prescribed their lifestyle changes," Mellen said. "They did not. Presumably, this would mean that changes in the population have overwhelmed the DASH diet recommendations."

The DASH -- Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension -- focuses on nine nutrient types: total fat, saturated fat, protein, cholesterol, fiber, calcium, magnesium, potassium and sodium. Essentially, it calls for eating lots of fruits, vegetables, grains and low-fat dairy. The people with high blood pressure whose records Mellen examined in two National Health and Nutrition Examination Surveys examined were considered to be following the DASH diet if they met half the nutrient targets.

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