Nutritional factors and cardiovascular disease.

Our studies with the stroke prone substrain of the spontaneously-hypertensive rat indicate that components of the diet can have an important effect on the expression of pathology associated with severe hypertension. Specifically increasing the protein intake significantly reduces the occurrence of cerebral lesions in these rats. The expression of other pathological consequences of severe hypertension are not necessarily affected by the same dietary factors. Some preliminary evidence indicates that methionine may have a role in this protective effect, but further studies are needed. Finally, a number of parallels exist between these and epidemiologic studies suggesting that the model may have some relevance to human disease.