A study suggests that following a Mediterranean diet lowers the risk of initiating or increasing antihypertensive medication in an older population at high cardiovascular risk and reduces CV risk among antihypertensive drug users.
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Researchers determined whether participants randomized
to an intervention with a Mediterranean diet enriched with extra-virgin olive
oil or nuts, relative to a low-fat control diet, disclosed differences in the
risk of initiating antihypertensive medication in non-users at baseline and escalating
therapy in those using one, two, or three drugs at baseline.
Furthermore, researchers sought to determine whether
allocation to Mediterranean diet modified the relation between antihypertensive
drug use and incident cardiovascular events.
Participants assigned to Mediterranean diet interventions
had a lower risk of initiating antihypertensive therapy (5-year incidence
rates: 43% in the Mediterranean diet vs 47.1% in the control diet, in a model
that was adjusted for age, gender, and recruitment site).
For those individuals on two antihypertensive drugs at
baseline in the Mediterranean diet intervention enriched with extra-virgin
olive oil revealed a reduced risk of therapy escalation relative to those in
the control diet (5-year incidence rates: 20.1% vs 22.9%).
Moreover, the Mediterranean diet intervention weakened
the correlation between antihypertensive therapy at baseline and incidence of
major adverse cardiovascular events.
Source: J Hypertens 2021;39:1230-1237