Healthy lifestyle 'just as good as drugs' for high blood pressure: Diet and exercise cut risk by two thirds





http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/ar...-pressure.html




Exercising regularly, keeping weight down, drinking in moderation and eating plenty of vegetables can cut the chances of developing high blood pressure by two thirds, say researchers.

The impact of these measures on high blood pressure was much bigger than expected, a study found, and in some cases could even be just as effective a way to treat sufferers as prescribing drugs.

Just walking to work and restricting alcohol to two drinks a day can ‘reduce the risk markedly’, according to the study of more than 20,000 people.
Every day there are 350 preventable strokes or heart attacks in the UK caused by high blood pressure.

In developed countries such as the UK, the lifetime risk of developing high blood pressure is now 90 per cent, and six million Britons take drugs to control it.

People with hypertension – the medical term for high blood pressure – are already routinely advised to make the lifestyle changes highlighted in the study but the effect far surpassed expectations.

The Finnish study followed 9,637 men and 11,430 women aged 25 to 74 who did not have hypertension........