April 24, 2018 – Grilling

Podcast: Download (Duration: 1:02 — 1.4MB)

Subscribe: RSS

Anchor lead: Can too much grilled food lead to high blood pressure? Elizabeth Tracey reports

Many people love grilled foods, but now a new study points to eventual development of high blood pressure as a consequence of eating them often. Seth Martin, a cardiologist at Johns Hopkins, says at this point, moderation is key.

Martin: It’s about how often you have the grilled foods as well as just having grilled foods. So in this particular study it was folks who were having it basically every other day that had this increased risk of hypertension. And just to be clear this is an epidemiologic study where they found an association, whether it was a causal link from the grilled foods to hypertension is still to be determined.  But it is something that raises our eyebrows and we would say that if you do love grilled foods try to have it less frequently.  :32

Martin notes that focusing on other important factors relative to high blood pressure such as a lack of exercise are likely to have a greater impact than grilled food consumption. At Johns Hopkins, I’m Elizabeth Tracey.