Having high blood pressure can drastically impact your risk for heart disease or stroke, which is why it’s important to keep hypertension under control. Making an effort to reduce your sugar intake can cause remarkable improvements in high blood pressure. However, if you’re looking for additional ways to lower your blood pressure, it may be in your best interest to stock up on yogurt the next time you visit the grocery store.
Yogurt and High Blood Pressure
In a recent study published by The American Journal of Hypertension, the consumption of 2 servings of yogurt each week can reduce your risk of heart disease and stroke by up to 20 percent.1 In the study, nearly three-quarters of a million participants that were diagnosed with high blood pressure were issued questionnaires about their yogurt intake for over 30 years. Surprisingly, those that regularly consumed 2 or more servings each week, along with a healthy diet, were found to have reduced instances of cardiovascular events like heart attack or stroke.
Adding Yogurt to Your Diet
It’s important to note that the study did not specify if any one type of yogurt is best when trying to reduce high blood pressure. For many, the simple act of adding a sweetened, flavored yogurt to their diet twice a week made enough of an impact to show results. However, for those that follow a low-sugar or ketogenic diet, the choice of yogurt matters a great deal. In fact, the added benefit of including yogurt in a ketogenic diet is that yogurt has shown to also improve risk factors associated with insulin resistance and type 2 diabetes.2
Sugar-sweetened yogurts can contain over 20 grams of sugar per serving – which is crippling when many keto dieters are working with less than 30 grams of total carbohydrates each day and avoiding sugar at all cost. However, it’s still possible to make yogurt work in a ketogenic diet. Checking nutritional labels and opting for full fat, plain Greek yogurt or artificially sweetened yogurts can make fitting this healthy treat into your macros much easier.
Going Keto for Cardiovascular Health
In addition to adding two servings of yogurt to your diet each week, consider taking the step to go completely keto in order to make improvements in your blood pressure and cardiovascular health. With an increased trend toward more sedentary lifestyles, the need for large amounts of carbohydrates is unnecessary for most people. When our bodies aren’t burning off the carbohydrates and glucose through activity, we’re at increased risk of gaining weight or developing cardiovascular disease.3
Even on a ketogenic diet, making a low-sugar yogurt part of your diet twice a week can be beneficial in reducing high blood pressure and, ultimately, decreasing your risk of having a cardiovascular event like stroke or heart attack.
NUTRITIONAL DISCLAIMER
The content on this website should not be taken as medical advice and you should ALWAYS consult with your doctor before starting any diet or exercise program. We provide nutritional data for our recipes as a courtesy to our readers. We use Total Keto Diet app software to calculate the nutrition and we remove fiber and sugar alcohols, like erythritol, from the total carbohydrate count to get to the net carb count, as they do not affect your blood glucose levels. You should independently calculate nutritional information on your own and not rely on our data. The website or content herein is not intended to cure, prevent, diagnose or treat any disease. This website shall not be liable for adverse reactions or any other outcome resulting from the use of recipes or recommendations on the Website or actions you take as a result. Any action you take is strictly at your own risk.
Dr. Rosmy Barrios, MD is an aesthetic medicine specialist whose work focuses on patients who are treated for obesity, metabolic syndrome, and other weight-related issues through nutritional analysis, keto diet programs, and supporting medications.
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