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Low-Carb Diet Wins for Blood Pressure Reduction

It's so interesting to me how different studies will show different things. This one, published this week in the Archives of Internal Medicine, includes some exciting news for people with high blood pressure. The comparison in this case was between a low-carb diet similar to the Atkins plan, and a low-fat, low-calorie diet which included the use of Orlistat, the prescription dose of the over-the-counter weight-loss medication Alli. The groups were followed for almost a year. Another difference between this and some other studies was that they did not exclude people with health problems such as diabetes, in fact, a third of the participants were diabetic, with many taking medicine to lower blood sugar and blood pressure. One most measures, the outcomes were similar. Both groups lost on average a little less than 10% of body weight, and had similar improvements in risk markers such as cholesterol. The one main difference was that not only were more people in the low-carb able to reduce their blood pressure medication (of those taking medication, 47% of the low-carb group reduced or eliminated medication, compared to 21% in the Orlistat/low-fat group), but even with the reduced medication, the low-carb group as a whole had reduced blood pressure compared to the Orlistat/low-fat group. This is especially surprising because Orlistat has a slight lowering effect on blood pressure, and because both groups achieved similar weight loss. In addition to lowering blood pressure medication, more diabetics in the low-carb group were able to lower diabetes medication (81% for low-carb and 68% for Orlistat/low-fat). Another interesting result I noticed in the study was that even though the low-carb group was not told to limit calories, their calorie reduction was about the same as the group specifically told to reduce calories. One thing low-carbers love is that they don't need to struggle to reduce food intake - it comes naturally! Also interesting was although the low-carb group was eating a greater precentage of fat than before the diet, the amount of fat stayed about the same. The low-fat/Orlistat group had a large fat reduction, but although their percentage of carbohydrates went up, the amount was reduced by 17% (because they were eating fewer calories, they were eating less carbohydrate and fat). This is the first time, to my knowledge, that a low-carb diet has been pitted against a weight loss medication. In this case, the low-carb diet did as well as the medication for weight loss, with the additional benefit of better blood pressure and medication reduction, and avoiding side effects from the medication. Photo: Joe Raedle/Getty Images Related Resources: Medications and Low-Carb Diets Low-Carb Science 6 Steps to Diabetes Prevention Low-Carb Diet Wins for Blood Pressure Reduction originally appeared on About.com Low Carb Diets on Wednesday, January 27th, 2010 at 13:59:41.Permalink | Comment | Email this
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