On Sep 17, 1:48 pm, "ironjust...@aol.com" <ironjust...@aol.com> wrote:
HOW diet affects blood viscosity. <<

Karen Pallarito, "Veggie Diet May Lower High Blood Pressure", ABC
News,
January 21, 2005,

Vegetarians tend to have lower blood pressure than the general
population, but it hasn't been clear whether their diet or their
lifestyle guards them against hypertension.

Now, a new review of previously published studies claims that diet
provides the protection.

Who loves ya.
Tom

Jesus Was A Vegetarian!
http://tinyurl.com/634q5a

Man Is A Herbivore!
http://tinyurl.com/4rq595

DEAD PEOPLE WALKING
http://tinyurl.com/zk9fk

"It's the diet itself, and it is clearly the diet of choice for
people
who want to get their blood pressure under control," said Dr. Neal D.
Barnard, president and founder of the Physicians Committee for
Responsible Medicine and co-author of the report, which appears in
the
January issue of Nutrition Reviews.

Barnard, a nutritionist and author of the book Breaking the Food
Seduction: The Hidden Reasons Behind Food Cravings and Seven Steps to
End Them Naturally, concluded that a person who suffers from
hypertension and has yet to switch to a vegetarian diet is "really
trying to fight their condition with one arm tied behind their back."

About 65 million American adults have high blood pressure, according
to
the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute. Hypertension is often
called the "silent killer" because it usually has no symptoms but
leads
to increased risk for heart disease, congestive heart failure, stroke
and kidney failure.

Barnard and committee nutritionist Susan Berkow analyzed 80
scientific
studies, including observational studies of individuals on vegetarian
diets compared with non-vegetarians and randomized, controlled trials
in which outcomes of people who switch to a plant-based diet were
compared with control subjects.

"The purpose of our review was to bring together what is known about
the effect of the diet, but also what we know about the mechanism and
try to explain why this occurs," Barnard explained.

Some of the best observational data, according to the report, come
from
studies involving Seventh-Day Adventists, who advocate an alcohol-
free,
tobacco-free, vegetarian lifestyle. About 50 percent of Adventists
follow a lacto-ovo-vegetarian diet, which includes dairy products and
eggs, the authors noted.

One study involving California Adventists found that vegetarians have
about half the prevalence of hypertension compared to non-vegetarian
Adventists. When hypertensives were defined as those taking
medication
intended to reduce their blood pressure, a nearly threefold
difference
in the prevalence of hypertension was seen between the groups.

Overall, the randomized controlled trials included in the review
found
that blood pressure is lowered when animal products were replaced
with
vegetable products in both people with normal blood pressure and
those
who are hypertensive.

To understand the blood-pressure-lowering effects of a plant-based
diet, the authors examined changes in body weight and intake of
specific food groups and nutrients.

Studies show that vegetarians tend to be slimmer, on average, which
may
help explain their lower incidence of hypertension. A vegetarian diet
also is significantly lower in saturated fat, reducing the viscosity,
or thickness, of the blood.

Blood becomes "less like oil, more like water," Barnard explained.

And because vegetarian diets are generally high in fruits and
vegetables, people who follow this diet consume more potassium than
those who eat a diet of meat and vegetables. The analysis cites two
reviews involving a total of 52 randomized clinical trials showing
potassium supplementation significantly lowered blood pressure in
people with normal and elevated blood pressure.

There are those who disagree with the finding, however.

Dr. Lawrence J. Appel, a nutrition specialist at the Johns Hopkins
Bloomberg School of Public Health, said the paper fails to establish
a
clear cause-and-effect relationship between consuming a plant-based
diet and lowering one's blood pressure.

"It's a good review, but there are still unanswered questions," he
said.

He also noted that very few clinical trials have been conducted, and
that those that have been done are small and not tightly controlled.
Much of the data is observational.

So, he said, it remains unclear whether a vegetarian diet alone is
responsible for lowering blood pressure or whether some aspect of a
vegetarian regimen -- such as eating lots of fruits and vegetables
rich
in potassiumand fiber while maintaining a desirable body weight --
could have the same effect.

And then there there is the fact that not everyone who has high blood
pressure eats poorly or is overweight; genetic factors significantly
influence a person's risk for hypertension.

Still, Barnard insists a vegetarian diet is healthy for everyone,
whether or not they have high blood pressure.

He offers this caveat for people taking blood pressure medication:
"Don't throw your medication in the trash." High blood pressure is a
serious medical condition requiring immediate medical attention. Even
if you switch to a vegetarian diet to trim down, you won't lose the
weight overnight, he said. It could take more than a year for a
person
who is 60 pounds overweight to drop that excess baggage.

Barnard hopes the review will prompt more doctors to recommend a
vegetarian diet. Many are reluctant to do because they fear that
patients won't stick with it, but there's no reason to believe
patients
would be less likely to go vegetarian than to comply with other
diets,
he said.

"They may not hit the mark 100 percent, but they'd do much better if
a
doctor recommended it," he said.

Barnard's group, the physicians committee, is a Washington, D.C.-
based
nonprofit that promotes good nutrition, opposes unethical human
experimentation and advocates alternatives to animal research.

This is just an example of several posts made recently not having
nutritional content.  Should not you be more selective in your choice of
news groups?

"Viscosity of the blood has been explained to you in its' relation TO
nutrition / diet."

Then you need to make the connection each time if you think it can be
made.  You mentioned in passing one case that somehow involved veggie
alone folk.  You can not tie the entire universe to everything else by
that one case.  Some meat eaters have thin blood.  should we make a
universal case of that also?