Healthy diet beats drugs to combat heart disease

Adopting a healthier lifestyle is a more effective way to prevent heart disease than taking pharmaceuticals.

This is especially true for young and middle-aged people who have early signs of high blood pressure (hypertension), say researchers at the University of California at San Francisco (UCSF).

Eating healthily and dropping processed food, exercising and cutting back on alcohol can together be more effective than heart drugs such as antihypertensives for reducing blood pressure levels, and can prevent 26,000 cases of heart disease, and avoid 2900 heart deaths, every year in the US alone. 

Changing the diet is the single most important way to reduce your chances of heart disease, even if you have high blood pressure, the researchers say.  This means eating more fruit, vegetables and lean meats, nuts, seeds and grains—and cutting back on red meat, sodium, sugars and sugar-sweetened drinks that are in fast, processed foods.

Nearly 9 million middle-aged Americans—who are up to 64 years of age—have early-stage hypertension that’s not being treated, the researchers estimate.  Unless they make lifestyle changes, their heart disease can develop and become more serious, possibly even ending with a heart attack or stroke.

Early-stage hypertension is defined as a systolic (top number) level of 130-139 mm Hg or a diastolic reading of 80-89 mm Hg.

American Heart Association Hypertension Scientific Sessions 2022, September 7 2022.

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