High blood pressure, more properly known as hypertension, is accurately known as the silent killer and it plagues far more people than you may realize, as reported by the CDC:

High Blood Pressure in the United States

 

• Having high blood pressure puts you at risk for heart disease and stroke, which are leading causes of death in the United States.

• About 75 million American adults (32%) have high blood pressure—that’s 1 in every 3 adults.

• About 1 in 3 American adults has prehypertension—blood pressure numbers that are higher than normal—but not yet in the high blood pressure range.

• Only about half (54%) of people with high blood pressure have their condition under control.

• High blood pressure was a primary or contributing cause of death for more than 410,000 Americans in 2014—that’s more than 1,100 deaths each day.

• High blood pressure costs the nation $48.6 billion each year. This total includes the cost of health care services, medications to treat high blood pressure, and missed days of work.

 

The risk of having high blood pressure does seem to have a correlation with where in the US one lives:

I have to admit that I’m one of the above statistics. My high blood pressure is due to my being overweight, which is why I’m working on losing weight in hopes to not only reduce my waist size, but to reduce my hypertension and type 2 diabetes.

Like millions of others, I’ve heard and read about a number of ways to reduce my high blood pressure. Among the most common are diet, exercise and losing weight. Just take a minute, open your internet browser and type in ‘cardio exercises’. I did and found a plethora of resources featuring a host of different exercises designed to improve heart health and lower blood pressure. Now type in ‘heart friendly diets’ and again, you will find a vast array of different recommendations. You can also refine that last search to ‘foods to lower high blood pressure’ and guess what? You can also search for ‘vitamins and supplements for high blood pressure’ and again you will find a bunch of references.

By now, one could feel like they were drowning in all of the abundance of information and recommendations to help one lower their high blood pressure.

If you want to skip the volumes of resources, perhaps you would be interested in just this one study about how a common treat and health food has been proven to help lower blood pressure:

In a study published in the American Journal of Hypertension, the benefits of yoghurt on women’s blood pressure was analysed.

The researchers found that women who consumed five or more servings of yoghurt a week had a lower risk of developing high blood pressure than similar women who hardly ever ate a yoghurt.

According to the American Heart Association (AHA), having high blood pressure is potentially dangerous because it strains the heart, hardens arteries and raises the risk of brain haemorrhage and kidney problems.

Previous studies have already shown that dairy products can reduce the risk of high blood pressure in at-risk adults, say the researchers, but few long-term studies have looked at the independent effect of yoghurt alone.

Lead author of the study, Dr Justin Buendia at Boston University School of Medicine, said: “I believe this is the largest study of its kind to date to evaluate the specific effects of yoghurt on blood pressure.”

The researchers suggest the beneficial effect of yoghurt on lowering the risk of high blood pressure, especially when consumed as part of a healthy diet.

The association between dairy consumption, particularly yoghurt and blood pressure may be explained by its nutrient content.

Yoghurt contains high concentrations of proteins, as well as calcium, magnesium, potassium and vitamin D, all of which have been linked to regulation of blood pressure.

During the fermentation process used to make yoghurt, biologically active peptides are formed and these too have been shown to promote blood pressure-lowering effects.

If you one of the millions who enjoy eating yogurt, then according to this study, you are doing your part to help lower your high blood pressure. If not, you may to add it to your daily or weekly diet.