TUESDAY, Aug. 31 (HealthDay News) -- Eating a diet rich in fruits and vegetables and low in saturated fats can significantly lower the risk of heart attack for people with mildly elevated blood pressure, Johns Hopkins University researchers say.

Attention, all you chocoholics out there. When Australian doctors prescribed a bar of dark chocolate daily to people with high blood pressure, a mutiny broke out. Half said eating that much candy was hard. One in five groused that chocolate just wasn't an acceptable hypertension treatment. Shocking, huh?

AGE should not stop anyone from being fit and active. In fact, older people can benefit the most from regular exercise, compared to people from any other age group.

They say that laughter is the best medicine, but some people might endorse chocolate instead. The dark variety has been shown to reduce blood pressure better than a placebo. Scientists credit the flavonols in dark chocolate -- they are thought to stimulate the production of nitric oxide, which helps relax the arteries so that blood can flow smoothly.

People with hypertension (high blood pressure) who binge drink are much more likely to die than other individuals, says a study published in the medical journal Stroke: Journal of the American Heart Association. The definition of hypertension in this study was blood pressure of at least 168 /100 millimeters of mercury. Binge drinking involves consuming large quantities of alcoholic drinks in one ...