Nikhil Prasad Fact checked by:Thailand Medical News Team Nov 23, 2025 1 hour, 14 minutes ago
Medical News: A New Look at Diet and Hidden Heart Disease
A remarkable new study has revealed that natural compounds found in fruits, vegetables, nuts, and legumes may help protect and even repair the heart’s smallest and most overlooked blood vessels. These tiny vessels play a major role in heart health, yet they often become damaged long before symptoms appear. According to this
Medical News report, scientists found that plant-based nutrients were able to restore normal vessel function even when high blood pressure was still present. This discovery offers a promising new direction for preventing silent forms of heart disease that frequently affect women.
Researchers show that plant-based foods can repair the heart’s smallest blood vessels even
without lowering blood pressure
Who Conducted the Research
The study was led by researchers from the Institute for Biomedical Sciences at Georgia State University, with additional contributions from scientists now at Emory University School of Medicine. Their goal was to see whether a nutrient-matched plant-based diet could prevent or reverse coronary microvascular dysfunction, a condition in which the tiny arteries supplying the heart become stiff, inflamed, and unable to expand properly.
How the Study Was Designed
To explore this, the researchers fed hypertensive rats either a refined diet lacking plant foods or a plant-based diet containing 28 percent fruits, vegetables, nuts, and legumes. Both diets had identical nutrient levels, allowing the team to isolate the unique impact of plant compounds. After six months, some animals were switched from the refined diet to the plant diet to test whether the damage could be reversed. The team measured heart function using coronary flow reserve techniques, cardiac MRI imaging, and cellular tests on blood vessel tissue.
Key Findings Show Powerful Effects
The results were striking. Rats on the plant-based diet showed clear protection against microvascular disease, while those switched later experienced significant healing of damaged vessels. This improvement happened despite the animals continuing to have high blood pressure. The researchers found that plant nutrients helped blood vessels produce more nitric oxide, a molecule that relaxes artery walls. They also discovered reduced inflammation, lower oxidative stress, improved smooth muscle cell response, and reduced early fibrosis in heart tissue.
These cellular benefits collectively restored the ability of the heart’s microvessels to widen normally and improve blood flow.
What the Findings Mean for the Future
The conclusion of this study is that plant-based diets may offer highly targeted protection for the heart’s microcirculation, independent of blood pressure. This is important because many patients continue to experience chest pain and hospitalizations even when they take multiple medications. By directly improving endothelial and smooth muscle cell function, plant nutrients may offer a
safe and accessible option to prevent or reverse early heart disease. These findings strongly support clinical trials in humans and suggest that diet could soon become a frontline tool against a form of heart disease that often goes unnoticed yet causes major long-term complications.
The study findings were published in the peer reviewed Journal of the American Heart Association
https://www.ahajournals.org/doi/10.1161/JAHA.125.045515
For the latest on Heart and Vascular Health, keep on logging to Thailand
Medical News.
Read Also:
https://www.thailandmedical.news/articles/cardiology
https://www.thailandmedical.news/articles/herbs-and-phytochemicals
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