Women, who eat five or more servings of yogurt a week are less likely to develop high blood pressure, research has found. This was disclosed in the research presented at the American Heart Association’s Epidemiology/ Lifestyle 2016 Scientific Sessions.
The study – the largest of its kind, involving data from hundreds of thousands of people, found that the risk of high blood pressure was reduced by a fifth. This was compared to people who ate just one portion of yogurt a month. Yogurt is made by adding a number of types of harmless bacteria to milk, causing it to ferment.
This thickens it and gives it its characteristically tangy flavour. Cow’s milk is the most common type used, but goat’s, ewe’s, sheep or buffalo’s milk are also suitable. The effect of yogurt was most noticeable in women because men eat much less yogurt, the researchers said.
And the benefit of eating yogurt five times a week was even greater in people who also ate lots of fruit, vegetables, nuts and beans. Blood pressure is the force of blood pushing against the walls of the arteries as the heart pumps blood.
High blood pressure, sometimes called hypertension, happens when this force is too high. Health care workers check blood pressure readings the same way for children, teens, and adults. The researchers saw a 31 per cent reduction in risk for high blood pressure, compared to those who ate yogurt just once a month. Justin Buendia, a PhD candidate at Boston University School of Medicine, said: “No one food is a magic bullet, but adding yogurt to an otherwise healthy diet seems to help reduce the long-term risk of high blood pressure in women. “I believe this is the largest study of its kind to date to evaluate the specific effects of yogurt on blood pressure.”
Ms Buendia, who presented the study at a conference of the American Heart Association, added: “Our study shows that daily intake of dairy products, particularly yogurt, lowers the risk of developing high blood pressure, which is a key risk factor.
The research was funded by the National Dairy Council in the United States (US). It used data taken from studies of nurses’ health involving more than 240,000 people, mainly women between the ages of 25 and 55, and a second study of 51,000 health professionals, mostly men between 40 and 75.
How yogurt reduces blood pressure was not explained. However, it has previously been suggested the bacteria in yogurt may play a role in helping to lower cholesterol – which can cause the restricted blood vessels that led to higher blood pressure.
