A plant-based diet attenuates hypertension-induced renal and hepatic stress: an exploratory study

Hypertension drives progressive renal dysfunction and hepatic injury. In this secondary analysis, we investigated whether a plant-based diet (PBD) could prevent and/or reverse hypertension-induced renal and hepatic insult. Four-week-old female spontaneously hypertensive rats (SHRs) consumed a refined control diet or PBD comprising 28% fruits, vegetables, nuts and legumes, while normotensive Wistar-Kyoto rats consumed the control diet. After 24 weeks, a subset of control-fed SHRs switched to PBD for 12 weeks. Despite sustained hypertension, exploratory analyses indicated that PBD may reduce serum urea during prevention (3.84 ± 1.12 vs. 3.03 ± 0.80 mmol L^-1; P = 0.0263) and treatment (4.37 ± 1.80 vs. 3.11 ± 0.93 mmol L^-1; P = 0.0248). Estimated glomerular filtration rate may also improve during treatment (1319 ± 277 vs. 1599 ± 432 µL min^-1; P = 0.0488). However, this did not reach significance during the prevention phase (P = 0.0518). PBD prevented and reversed elevations in serum alanine aminotransferase (ALT; prevention: 32.61 ± 3.23 vs. 22.50 ± 3.52 U L^-1; treatment: 33.34 ± 2.87 vs. 24.48 ± 3.99 U L^-1; both P < 0.0001). Further, PBD increased renal antioxidant enzyme expression and reduced hepatic tumor necrosis factor-α during prevention. Qualitatively, PBD may attenuate left kidney glomerular collagen accumulation. These findings warrant additional translational studies testing minimally refined PBDs, with potential pilot clinical studies as an adjunctive therapy in adults with hypertension.