Projected population effects of a nutritional blood pressure intervention on death rates from cardiovascular disease

Evidence is accumulating that blood pressure can be modified by dietary changes. To test whether dietary manipulation could have an important effect on CVD death rates in a population, we used the logistic risk function to project the effects of pharmacological and dietary intervention. Successful pharmacological control of 60%, 80%, and 100% of the population with diastolic blood pressure values of 90 mm Hg or more is projected to result in 11%, 14%, and 18% reductions in CVD death rates, respectively. Reducing dietary fat to 23% and increasing the P/S ratio to 0.98 is projected to result in a 47% reduction in CVD death rates. The dietary intervention is projected to reduce the population requiring medication by 50% and reduce costs of hypertension treatment by 30%. On the basis of these projections, we conclude that dietary interventions for hypertension control can have an important effect both on death rates and treatment costs.