Women with diabetes related to pregnancy may reduce their future risk of hypertension through the consumption of a healthy diet, researchers report.
His study included almost 4,000 women.All women had a history of diabetes related to pregnancy (gestational).It is a known risk factor of posterior hypertension, researchers said.
For 22 years of follow -up, more than a thousand women developed hypertension, which puts them at a higher risk of heart attack and stroke, according to researchers.
Women who followed a healthy diet had 20 percent less likely to develop hypertension than those who did not follow it.The study authors said that the increase in body fat had between 20 and 30 percent of the responsibility for the link between worse food habits and a greater risk of hypertension.
A healthy diet includes enough fruits and vegetables, whole grains and fish.Red meat, processed meats and salt are limited to a healthy diet, the researchers noted.
The study appears in the April 18 edition of Hypertension magazine.
"Our previous research showed that diabetes in pregnancy increased a woman's risk of developing hypertension [high blood pressure], even 16 years after giving birth," noted the main author of the study, Dr. Cuilin Zhang, researchermain of the National Institute of Children and Human Development of the United States.
"Our current study shows that a healthy diet, which has been proven that it reduces the risk of hypertension in the general population, seems to be equally effective in reducing the risk in this group of women with a high risk," said Zhang in a statementof the magazine's press.
Doctors and other health care workers should encourage women with diabetes related to pregnancy to follow a healthy diet and exercise regularly before and after giving birth, the researchers advised.
More information
The National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Renal Diseases of the United States. It has more information about gestational diabetes.