The team of researchers from Imperial College London say most adults either have high blood pressure or are heading in that direction.

High blood pressure is associated with an increased risk of heart disease and stroke.

Their study involved as many as 4,680 people aged 40-59, living in the United Kingdom, the United States, Japan and China, and they say though it is unclear why, the more vegetable protein the subjects said they consumed, the lower their blood pressure was.

The researchers say they suspect amino acids, the building blocks of protein, or vegetable components, such as magnesium, may be key.

They believe a better understanding of vegetarian proteins could lead to a way of preventing or treating heart and circulatory diseases.

Previous studies have shown that vegetarian diets are healthier for the heart than diets heavy in meat, and some types of amino acid have been shown to influence blood pressure, for instance arginine has been shown to dilate the blood vessels.

But study author Paul Elliott does say that after adjusting for height and weight, the study did not find that the more meat protein consumed in the diet, the higher the blood pressure, but meat eaters overall had higher blood pressure than vegetable-eaters.

Apparently they found no strong evidence that high meat consumption is linked to high blood pressure.

Professor Elliott, says more research is needed to pin down exactly why vegetables help lower blood pressure.

Other experts have also said that previous research has also shown that blood pressure was better controlled with a vegetarian diet.

The report is published in the journal Archives of Internal Medicine.

"Perhaps as we age, hedgehog signals become blocked or decreased. This study implies that if we block hedgehog signals, humans would have less bone and more fat. Conversely, if we can activate the pathway, we might be able to prevent or reverse osteoporosis and simultaneously prevent or reduce fat accumulation," he said.

Dr. Graff said that other researchers have spent a great deal of effort developing agents to regulate the hedgehog pathway. These agents, currently in the early development phase for anti-cancer treatments, hold promise for human use.

"The drugs already in clinical development might be useful for this purpose as well," Dr. Graff said. "If medicine could stimulate the hedgehog pathway in adults, those adults could potentially not only get leaner and become more fit, but could also add bone mass as well. That could affect obesity, diabetes, lipodystrophy and osteoporosis, all of which are major human diseases."

Dr. Graff cautioned that because the hedgehog pathway is so involved in many biological processes, side effects are possible. However, agents could be developed to target hedgehog therapies to specific human tissues, such as fat or bone, he said.

"There are still tremendous hurdles to overcome before a treatment or a drug is developed," Dr. Graff said. "We have to do the basic research before we even know what those hurdles are."

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