Thus, an overall summary of the literature suggests that there is strong potential for a number of macronutrients and micronutrients to play an important role in reducing blood pressure. Testing dietary patterns rather than specific nutrients is a promising approach because it is not yet known which nutrients might be most effective in lowering blood pressure and because the effect of individual nutrients may be small. Testing dietary patterns would naturally include several nutrients that cumulatively are likely to lower blood pressure. Furthermore, most intervention studies which have not demonstrated decreases in blood pressure from individual nutrients used supplements rather than foods. Therefore, it may be important to test nutrients as components of foods and dietary patterns and not as isolated or processed nutrients.