{"id":44182,"date":"2014-07-21T16:23:05","date_gmt":"2014-07-21T20:23:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.nejm.org\/cardioexchange\/?post_type=news&#038;p=44182"},"modified":"2014-07-21T16:23:05","modified_gmt":"2014-07-21T20:23:05","slug":"probiotics-and-blood-pressure","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.nejm.org\/cardioexchange\/2014\/07\/21\/probiotics-and-blood-pressure\/","title":{"rendered":"Probiotics May Help Reduce Blood Pressure"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>As interest in probiotics has grown in recent years, some evidence has emerged that probiotics may favorably reduce blood pressure, but trials have been small and inconsistent. Now <a href=\"http:\/\/hyper.ahajournals.org\/content\/early\/2014\/07\/21\/HYPERTENSIONAHA.114.03469.abstract?sid=9505a071-82ab-43f4-a720-3a5cfbf19bfc\">a meta-analysis published in <\/a><em><a href=\"http:\/\/hyper.ahajournals.org\/content\/early\/2014\/07\/21\/HYPERTENSIONAHA.114.03469.abstract?sid=9505a071-82ab-43f4-a720-3a5cfbf19bfc\">Hypertension<\/a>\u00a0<\/em>suggests that the blood-pressure lowering effects of probiotics may be genuine.<\/p>\n<p>Saman Khalesi and colleagues analyzed data from nine parallel, randomized, controlled\u00a0trials including 543 participants. Overall, the probiotic arms had a 3.56-mm Hg reduction in systolic blood pressure and a 2.38-mm Hg reduction in diastolic BP, relative to controls. A larger reduction in blood pressure was observed in trials in which baseline blood pressure was at least 130\/85 mm Hg, when treatment lasted at least 8 weeks, and when the daily dose of probiotics contained a larger number of colony-forming units.<\/p>\n<p>The authors note that although the treatment effect was &#8220;modest &#8230; even a small reduction of BP may have important public health benefits and cardiovascular consequences.&#8221; They conclude that their findings &#8220;suggest that probiotics may be used as a potential supplement for future interventions to prevent hypertension or improve BP control.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe small collection of studies we looked at suggest regular consumption of probiotics can be part of a healthy lifestyle to help reduce high blood pressure, as well as maintain healthy blood pressure levels,\u201d said the lead author of the study, Jing Sun, in a press release. \u201cThis includes probiotics in yogurt, fermented and sour milk and cheese, and probiotic supplements.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>As interest in probiotics has grown in recent years, some evidence has emerged that probiotics may favorably reduce blood pressure, but trials have been small and inconsistent. Now a meta-analysis published in Hypertension\u00a0suggests that the blood-pressure lowering effects of probiotics may be genuine. Saman Khalesi and colleagues analyzed data from nine parallel, randomized, controlled\u00a0trials including [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":196,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1,7],"tags":[456,454,2311,2312],"class_list":["post-44182","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general","category-prevention","tag-blood-pressure","tag-hypertension","tag-probiotics","tag-yogurt"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nejm.org\/cardioexchange\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44182","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nejm.org\/cardioexchange\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nejm.org\/cardioexchange\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nejm.org\/cardioexchange\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/196"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nejm.org\/cardioexchange\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=44182"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nejm.org\/cardioexchange\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44182\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nejm.org\/cardioexchange\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=44182"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nejm.org\/cardioexchange\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=44182"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nejm.org\/cardioexchange\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=44182"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}