Mouse Study Hints at How Mediterranean Diet Protects the Heart

By Kathleen Doheny
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MONDAY, May 19, 2014 (HealthDay News) -- Study after study has shown that a Mediterranean-style diet rich in fish, nuts, vegetables and fruits seems to lower your risk of heart trouble.

Now, a new mouse study hints at why.

"When unsaturated fatty acids, found in olive, nuts and fish oils, are eaten together with a source of nitrate or nitrite, found in vegetables such as beetroot and those with green leaves, they form nitro fatty acids in the body," explained lead researcher Philip Eaton, a professor of cardiovascular biochemistry at Kings College London. Those fatty acids then lower blood pressure by inhibiting a particular enzyme.

The study is published online May 19 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

While the finding was made in animals and such results often can't be duplicated in humans, Eaton thinks it would also happen in people because they have the same enzyme.

Eaton noted that although the finding is new, there is evidence that drugs that inhibit the enzyme might lower blood pressure and some pharmaceutical companies are working on developing such medications.

For the study, the researchers' aim was to find out if inhibiting the enzyme was enough to lower blood pressure in the animals studied. They first created mice with a mutation that made the enzyme resistant to the effects of nitro fatty acids.

When they gave the mice an enzyme inhibitor, blood pressure decreased in wild mice but not in the mice with the resistant version of the enzyme. The inhibitor protected the wild mice from heart damage in a mouse model of high blood pressure, but did not protect the re-engineered mice. When they fed the mice the food in the Mediterranean diet that combine to make nitro fatty acids, the enzyme was again inhibited in the wild mice, but not the re-engineered mice.

"This study provides insights on the mechanics behind how eating vegetables aids in the reduction of risk of