http://www.msnbc.com/news/726564.aspResearch suggests drinking orange juice can dramatically reduce blood pressure.
Drinking orange juice lowers
blood pressure
Plus, another study finds compound in tomatoes reduces risk of heart disease
By Charlene Laino
MSNBC
ATLANTA, March 19 — Two studies offer new evidence that eating a diet rich in colorful fruits and vegetables is good for your heart. One new study found that drinking fresh orange juice may help lower your blood pressure. And another trial found that the stuff that makes tomatoes red significantly cuts heart disease risk in women.
IN THE FIRST STUDY, two dozen people who drank two glasses of orange juice a day for six weeks experienced an astonishing 10 mm Hg drop in systolic blood pressure, reported Dr. Dennis Sprecher of the Cleveland Clinic Heart Center. And their diastolic blood pressure decreased by 3.5 mm Hg. Systolic refers to the top number in a blood pressure reading; diastolic, the bottom.
“This is an enormous amount for two months,” he said. “We were astonished.”
In the second trial of nearly 1,000 postmenopausal women enrolled in Harvard’s ongoing Women’s Health Study, those with the highest blood levels of lycopene — the compound that gives tomatoes their red color — were about one-third less likely to develop heart disease over the course of seven years than those with those lowest levels.
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A natural antioxidant related to vitamin A, lycopene has already been shown to prevent prostate cancer. But the new research may be the first to link a lycopene-rich diet to heart health.
Both studies were presented here this week at the annual meeting of the American College of Cardiology.
Taken together, the studies point to the benefits of eating vitamin-rich foods — not popping a supplement as a quick fix, said Dr. Sidney Smith, chief scientific officer of the American Heart Association.
“A diet rich in certain vitamins, including antioxidants like lycopene and the potassium of orange juice, appear to lower heart disease risk,” said Smith, a cardiologist at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
STUDY DETAILS
Funded by Tropicana, the orange juice study enrolled 24 patients with fat-clogged arteries. All suffered from high blood pressure that had been brought under control by medication.
“Twenty-one of the 24 patients had a pretty substantial drop in blood pressure,” Sprecher said.
Category Systolic (mm Hg) Diastolic (mm Hg)
Optimal blood pressure Lower than 120 Lower than 80
Normal blood pressure Lower than 130 Lower than 85
High-normal blood pressure 130-139 85-89
Hypertension
Stage 1 (mild) 140-159 90-99
Stage 2 (moderate) 160-179 100-109
Stage 3 (severe) 180 or higher 110 or higher
* Classifications for those 18 and older. Blood pressure is expressed in two numbers that represent the systolic pressure (when heart contracts and is pumping blood) over diastolic pressure (when heart is at rest). These numbers are measurements of millimeters (mm) of mercury (Hg). When systolic and diastolic blood pressures fall into different categories, the higher category should be selected to classify blood pressure status.
The researchers had hypothesized that OJ somehow improved blood flow through the heart’s arteries, thereby lowering blood pressure. But imaging of the arteries did not bear this out.
“It’s a probably the vitamin C and the potassium, but we really don’t know,” Sprecher said.
“The findings are very preliminary, but it certainly wouldn’t hurt most people to add orange juice to their diets [after checking with their doctor],” he added.
The Harvard trial followed 483 women who had suffered a heart attack, developed serious heart complications or died of heart disease over a seven-year period and 483 women who had not. All had their blood lycopene levels measured when the study began in 1992.
Statistical analysis showed that when other risk factors for heart disease were taken into account, women whose lycopene levels were highest had a 34 percent reduction in heart disease risk, compared with those whose levels were lowest, reported study author Howard Sesso.
While the study was not designed to determine how lycopene might lower heart disease risk, it is an antioxidant, AHA’s Smith noted.
“Since the oxidation of LDL, or bad, cholesterol, plays a role in leading to [the fat-clogged arteries that characterize] atherosclerosis, it seems logical that antioxidants would be helpful in preventing heart disease,” he said.
But studies of antioxidant supplements such as vitamin E have failed to show a protective effect, he said, pointing to the the importance of getting your vitamins from whole foods.
Don’t like tomatoes? Don’t fret: watermelon, carrots, spinach, papaya and pink grapefruit are all loaded with lycopene.
Charlene Laino is MSNBC Health Editor.
