2009 AHS-2 Report: Vegans have Lower Blood Pressure
I was reading the latest issue of the Vegetarian Nutrition Dietetic Practice Group’s newsletter and saw that there had been a review article published in 2009 that listed data from the Adventist Health Study-2 that has not been reported elsewhere to my knowledge. It is cross-sectional data that showed vegans to have a 75% reduced risk of high blood pressure compared to non-vegetarians.
More details can be seen in Table 11 of Disease Markers of Vegetarians.
Because this is cross-sectional data, it does not mean a vegan diet reduces the risk of high blood pressure by 75%. It could be that people with high blood pressure are less likely to become vegan. And the results were not adjusted for smoking.
Prospective data from AHS-2 should help clarify how much is from the vegan diet in the coming years.
May 20th, 2011 at 5:48 am
Would inadequate Vitamin B-12 intake affect the outcomes for vegans and hypertension? I guess what I’m asking is there any relationship between B-12 and hypertension? I know that there is between B-12 and heart disease because of homocysteine. I just wonder if that extends to high blood pressure as well?
Paul
May 20th, 2011 at 8:36 am
Paul,
If it does, apparently not too badly or vegans in AHS-2 are getting plenty of B12 (which is probably the case, SDA’s have traditionally been more cognizant of taking B12 than other vegan subcultures.
May 23rd, 2011 at 6:28 pm
I personally have had high blood pressure which I was taking medication for, and after I went back to to vegan diet after being veg for a while, my blood pressure dropped, and I’ve been off the blood pressure medication for a couple of years.
On a separate note I was curious if you had any thoughts or advice on a vegan ketogenic diet to control epilepsy, also note that a graves disease is an issue so
too much soy isn’t an option. My herbal treatments (herb) currently work, but I was curious about other options to control my seizures, but I can’t give up my vegan diet. any advice?
May 24th, 2011 at 8:32 am
May,
I think it’s possible to eat a vegan ketogenic diet. You might need a lot of avocados and protein powder if you can’t eat much tofu. You might want to stick with what’s been working for you as long as it keeps working.
May 24th, 2011 at 4:52 pm
Thanks for the advice, whats working works splendidly. Ketogenic diets are something I plan to experiment with someday, currently hemp protein powder is a great supplement to my diet. The MCT variant of the ketogenic diet seems to be more to my liking, I could get used to using coconut oil for cooking.