Low Carbohydrate - High Fat Diet Lowers Blood Pressure in Spontaneously Hypertensive Rats

Can hypertension be treated by substituting fat for carbohydrate in the diet? The recent work by Bosse et al found that a high fat/low carbohydrate diet improved vascular function and reduced blood pressure in hypertensive rats. Listen as Editor in Chief William C. Stanley, lead author Thunder Jalili (University of Utah) and expert Jun Ren (University of Wyoming) discuss the role of dietary fats and carbohydrates in cardiovascular function in hypertension.

John D. Bosse, Han Yi Lin, Crystal Sloan, Quan-Jiang Zhang, E. Dale Abel, Troy J. Pereira, Vernon W. Dolinsky, J. David Symons, and Thunder Jalili A low-carbohydrate/high-fat diet reduces blood pressure in spontaneously hypertensive rats without deleterious changes in insulin resistance Am J Physiol Heart Circ Physiol, published online April 19, 2013, doi: 10.1152/ajpheart.00631.2012.