Enjoy Mediterranean Soup for Cardiovascular Health

A cold vegetable soup featuring tomatoes, cucumbers, garlic, and olive oil, gazpacho is a Mediterranean vegetable-based cold soup rich in phytochemicals.  A. Medina-Remon, from the University of Barcelona (Spain), and colleagues analyzed data collected on 3,995 Spanish participants in the PREDIMED trial, which aims to analyze the effects of Mediterranean diet on the population at-risk for cardiovascular diseases.  The researchers found that consumption of gazpacho was inversely associated with the incidence of high blood pressure (hypertension), reporting that the risk could be reduced by as much as 27%.  Observing that: “Gazpacho consumption was inversely associated with systolic and diastolic [blood pressure] and prevalence of hypertension in a cross-sectional Mediterranean population at high cardiovascular risk,” the study authors submit that: “The association between gazpacho intake and reduction of [blood pressure] is probably due to synergy among several bioactive compounds present in the vegetable ingredients used to make the recipe.”