Fasting Might Lower Blood Pressure, Study Shows

New research points to a connection between intermittent fasting and a reduction in blood pressure. The connection is disruption of the gut microbiota, known as gut dysbiosis.

It is indicated from previous studies on animals that if dysbiotic gut microbiota from a hypertensive animal is transplanted into one with normal tension, the recipient develops high blood pressure.

The new study, out of Baylor College of Medicine and published in Circulation Research, aimed to address whether dysbiotic microbiota can be manipulated to reduce hypertension and how gut microbes influence animal blood pressure.

Using rats, two groups were set up, both containing spontaneously hypertensive stroke-prone model of rats (SHRSP) and normal rats. One group fasted every other day while the control group had unrestricted access to food.

Nine weeks into the experiment, as expected, the SHRSP control-group rats had higher blood pressure than the normal control-group rats. The SHRSP fasting rats had much lower blood pressure than the non-fasting SHRSP rats.

The microbiota of both groups of rats, fasting and non-fasting, was then transplanted into germ-free rats with no microbiota. The germ-free rats that received microbiota from the fasting SHRSP rats had significantly lower blood pressure than the rats that received microbiota from the SHRP control rats. Lead author of the study, David Durgan, PhD, said this demonstrated that alterations to the microbiota induced by fasting were able to mediate the effect of intermittent fasting.

The study researchers believe the results show that intermittent fasting can reduce hypertension by reshaping the composition of gut microbiota in an animal model. Durgan says there are potential clinical applications to the research, whereby fasting schedules could regulate the activity of gut microbial populations for health benefits.