FRIDAY, March 4, 2016 (HealthDay News) -- For women, regular yogurt consumption is associated with reduced risk of developing high blood pressure, according to a study presented at the American Heart Association's Epidemiology and Prevention/Lifestyle and Cardiometabolic Health 2016 Scientific Sessions, held from March 1 to 4 in Phoenix.
Justin R. Buendia, from the Boston University School of Medicine, and colleagues used repeated measures of diet and lifestyle collected over two to three decades to examine the effects of yogurt consumption. Data were obtained for participants without prevalent high blood pressure in the Nurses' Health Study cohorts (NHS and NHS II) and the Health Professionals Follow-up Study (HPFS).
The researchers identified 74,609 new cases of high blood pressure after 18 to 30 years of follow-up. Women who consumed five or more servings of yogurt per week had significant reductions in the risk of high blood pressure compared with those consuming zero to one serving per week (23 percent reduction in the NHS and 17 percent in NHS II) after adjustment for age, race, family history of high blood pressure, physical activity, and other confounding variables. No reduced risk was seen for men in the HPFS. Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension (DASH) score modified the beneficial effect of yogurt, with the strongest effect seen for those in the highest tertile of DASH scores.
"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," Buendia said in a statement.
The study was funded by the National Dairy Council.
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