Читать книгу DASH Diet For Dummies - Sarah Samaan - Страница 30

Hypertension (or high blood pressure) is more common than the common cold — and a lot more deadly. All told, in the U.S., hypertension affects upwards of 1 out of every 13 people in the under-40 set and more than 30 percent of folks in their 40s and 50s. By age 60, nearly two-thirds of individuals have full-on hypertension. And if you make it to 90, you’re nearly guaranteed full membership in the hypertension club. That adds up to more than 100 million Americans and over one billion people worldwide potentially popping a lot of pills every single day, and though that may make the drug companies happy, it’s not so good for everyone else.

More than just a number, high blood pressure affects the health of your heart, brain, and kidneys. Most research suggests that an ideal natural blood pressure is around 115/75. Those numbers may vary depending on your age and other health conditions, a topic we delve into in Part 2 of the book. For a typical adult age 40 through 70, it’s been estimated that for every 20-point elevation in systolic blood pressure (the top number) or 10-point rise in diastolic pressure (the bottom number) above these ideal numbers, your risk for heart attack or stroke doubles.

Although the link between diet and blood pressure had long been suspected, for years, no one had scientifically put a healthier diet to the test in average Americans with borderline to high blood pressure. In the 1990s, a group of physicians, nutritionists, nurses, and other medical researchers from five medical centers across the United States, along with scientists from the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute, set out on a mission to find out whether straightforward changes in diet could have an important impact in blood pressure. They wanted to create a plan that was easy to follow, accessible, and would work well for a variety of individual tastes. Auspiciously, the researchers called themselves the DASH group, for Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension. Who says scientists don’t know how to have fun?