Stock up on GROW! guys! It appears that this fantastic supplement can do more than just help build muscle.
Those who suffer from high blood pressure should take note. It appears that a high protein diet will indeed drive down at least the Systolic end of high blood pressure.
in a recent study that appeared in the Journal of the American Medical Association a team of researchers with the OmniHeart Collaborative Research Group compared the effects of three diets. But these weren’t weight-loss diets. They were diets solely intended to address high blood pressure.
More than 160 subjects with prehypertension or stage 1 hypertension were recruited to undergo six weeks of dieting. Each subject was randomly assigned one of these diets:
Carbohydrate Diet: This was modeled on the American Heart Association DASH diet (Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension); low in saturated fats, high in carbs from fruits, vegetables and fiber, small amounts of fish, poultry, lean meats, beans and nuts.
Protein Diet: This diet contained 10 percent more protein, mostly from beans, nuts, poultry, low-fat milk products and egg substitutes. Like the carb diet, 21 percent of calories came from unsaturated fats
Unsaturated Fat Diet: In this diet, 31 percent of calories came from unsaturated fats, primarily monounsaturated fats and oils such as olive oil. Calories from protein totaled 15 percent (as did the carb diet).
Right away you can see this is not setting the stage for a revolution, what with an apparent fear of nutritious protein sources (eggs and fish) and an emphasis on low-fat items.
Nevertheless, the protein and unsaturated fat diets bested the carb diet in three key measures: systolic blood pressure, triglycerides and LDL cholesterol. Both diets lowered systolic blood pressure more than the carb diet. The protein diet also lowered LDL cholesterol and triglycerides. LDL was not significantly affected by the unsaturated fat diet, but HDL increased and triglycerides went down.
In their conclusion the authors note that when a diet is fundamentally healthy, “partial substitution of carbohydrate with either protein or monounsaturated fat can further lower blood pressure, improve lipid levels, and reduce estimated cardiovascular risk.”
