The Commercial Appeal

BLACK COMMUNITY IN ISRAEL BEATS HIGH BLOOD PRESSURE \ STUDY CREDITS CLEAN LIFESTYLE
 

Date: March 29, 1998 Section: News Page: A18 Source:    Janet McConnaughey The Associated Press Dateline: NEW ORLEANS
Edition: Final

Their families had the history of hypertension and coronary artery disease so common among black people. But 204 black people who moved to Israel and converted to low-fat, low-salt food, no smoking and regular exercise turned that around.

Only 6 percent had high blood pressure - a condition found in 30 percent of all black people in this country. And, while half of all black women and 32 percent of all black men in this country are obese, that was true of less than 5 percent in the African Hebrew Israelite community.

The study by doctors at universities in Nashville is another piece in the puzzle of whether heredity or environment contributes more to the high hypertension rate among black Americans.

"This study comes as close as we have ever been able to come to separating genetics from lifestyle," said Dr. Michele Hamilton, a cardiologist at the UCLA Medical Center. She said she doesn't think there's any question that genetic tendencies combine with diet, smoking, obesity and other "lifestyle features" to make black people more likely than whites to develop high blood pressure.

"But the good news is, even for African-Americans who may have a genetic predisposition, you may well be able to beat that risk by making favorable life changes," she said.

Researchers from Waverly Bellmont Medical Center, Meharry Medical College and Vanderbilt University went to Israel to study the community, which includes black people from all parts of the United States. The study was presented Friday in a poster session of the Society for Behavioral Research, which is meeting in New Orleans.

The group, considered by many in Israel as a cult, lives on a communal compound and by extremely strict religious rules, following Ben Ami Ben Yisrael, who they believe is the messiah. They were extremely controversial when they arrived in Israel, saying they were the real Jews.

They live in Dimona, in the Negev region of southern Israel, about 25 miles from Beer Sheva.

Spokesman Ahmadiel Ben Yehuda, in New Orleans to speak to the African Heritage Studies Association, said the group is now about 3,000 strong.

It was founded by 332 black people who left this country in 1967 and went to Israel in the early 1970s.

Those founders were the focus of this study. The researchers said 223 agreed to participate, and 204 met the criteria: born in the United States and not pregnant.

They were from all over the country, and 34 percent of them said their families had a history of heart disease, indicating that they are, genetically, a good cross-section of black America, said David G. Schlundt of Vanderbilt, who presented the study.

But their lifestyles are far different from most Americans, black or white. In 1968, they struck red meat from their diet. In 1971, the year they came to Israel, they turned to a vegan diet, eliminating poultry, fish and animal products such as milk or cheese.

A year later, they began fasting on Saturday, their Sabbath. The group does not consider itself religious, believing that religion is man-made, but does believe that Israel, which they consider north Africa, is their ancestral home and that all of the Old Testament commandments and strictures apply to them, Ben Yehuda said.

Since 1973, the community has strongly encouraged exercise at least three days a week, and in 1980 it eliminated salt from the kitchen every other day, on top of a general rule that people shouldn't salt food once it came out of the kitchen.

The group's 30 years of healthy living has effectively prevented obesity and hypertension, and cholesterol levels also were low, the researchers said.

"These changes in lifestyle might prevent chronic disease in American blacks but would be hard to achieve without the unifying power of community and spirituality," the study said.

Although doctors have known for some time that changes in lifestyle can dramatically change the risk of many diseases, "this pins it down nicely," said Dr. Stewart Agras of Stanford.

He said the many changes made do make it hard to tell just what caused what change.

"Only a very complex controlled study could tease apart these various things," he said.

What should the controls be? Two groups which stayed in the United States, one changing its lifestyle and another keeping the same habits, Hamilton suggested.

Yaffa Podbilewicz-Schuller, chairman of the psychology department of the Washington University School of Medicine, would like even more - perhaps a group of black people who had stayed in America, one which had moved to Africa and one in Israel with a different diet.

"But it's a place to begin. It's a beautiful place to begin."