New Delhi:
Hypertension is a growing health concern worldwide. It may be caused by being overweight, lack of physical activity, too much of salt intake, heredity and so on. But these days even children are suffering from high blood pressure for various reasons.
Why is it called a silent killer?
High blood pressure also known as Hypertension is dangerous because it makes the heart work harder to pump blood out to the body and contributes to hardening of the arteries, thereby resulting in fatal results.
Many previous researches have shown different reasons and causes of hypertension but it still remains a major health concern. Now researchers from Brigham and Women's Hospital and Harvard Medical School in the US suggest that replacing one serving a day of potatoes with one serving of a non-starchy vegetable is associated with a lower risk of developing hypertension.
So that means eating four or more servings of potatoes and French fries a week may increase your risk of high blood pressure.
Researchers followed over 187,000 men and women for over 20 years. It was found that dietary intake played a major role in lifestyles. Frequency of potato consumption was also assessed for the study. It was later found out that increased servings of potato in diet also increases risk of hypertension in women but not in men.
Potatoes have a high high glycaemic index compared with other vegetables, that can trigger a sharp rise in blood sugar levels, making it one of the possible explanation for the findings. The study was published in the BMJ.
