Carbohydrate Diet Lower Blood Pressure

Low-carb Diet effective not only lose weight but also helps lower blood pressure.

Recent studies show that low-carb diet is as effective as slimming drug orlistat (the active ingredient in Alli and Xenical) in weight loss. But, people who follow low-carbohydrate diet also experienced improved blood pressure levels.

“If you have blood pressure problems and weight loss, low-carbohydrate diet is a better option than the use of slimming drugs,” said researcher S. Yancy, Jr.., MD, of Duke University Medical Center.

According to the researchers, previous studies have shown that these two methods are equally effective in weight loss. But, this is the first study that directly compared the health effects of these two.

“If the result is the same, however you will be better than trying to diet drugs. In addition to the more efficient, side effects are also much less,” explained Yanci.

Lower blood pressure

In a study published in the Archives of Internal Medicine, the researchers studied 146 adult participants of obesity or overweight. Most of the participants suffered from chronic health problems, such as hypertension or diabetes.

They were randomly divided into two groups. The first group was asked to follow low-carbohydrate diets with carbohydrate intake of less than 20 grams a day. The second group was asked to consume drugs orlistat and followed a thin low-fat diet (the amount of fat less than 30 percent of the total daily calories). Both groups followed a diet for 48 weeks.

The study shows that both groups lost weight is almost the same. Low-carbohydrate diet group on average fell 9.5 per cent of the weight loss and orlistat group fell an average of 8.5 percent of body weight. Both methods also showed similar results in improving cholesterol and glucose levels.

However, researchers saw a big difference in blood pressure. During the study, nearly half of the participants who followed low-carbohydrate diets reduce or stop the use of blood pressure-lowering drugs. This amount is greater than the participants of the orlistat group (only 21 per cent).

In general, systolic blood pressure (top number in a blood pressure gauge) at the low-carbohydrate diet group fell as much as 5.9 points was the orlistat group rose 1.5 points