High Blood Pressure? Look What You Eat!

Written by: coralee.nighswander.hypertensionnaturaltreatmentn
Date: Tue, 23 Feb 2010

Is Your Nutrition The Reson For Your High Blood Pressure?

One of the most common ailments affecting not just Americans but people across the world is high blood pressure or hypertension. Sometimes referred by the medical community as HBP, one of the primary causes of this distressing ailment is wrong dietary habit. Unfortunately in life, all the foods that are bad for health are inevitably good in taste!



Be that as it may, if you are a patient of high blood pressure, you ought to know what it is and how it is caused in the first place. HBP is caused when your heart is working double time to pump in blood and distribute it all across your body. This stressful situation occurs when the arteries which are responsible for circulating blood, gets clogged by excessive fat and cholesterol which forms plaques on the arterial walls which inhibits free flow of blood.

This is when blood pressure rises and if ignored often leads to stroke, heart attack, etc which can be fatal. The biggest irony in the management of high blood pressure is controlling your diet, which is responsible to start it in the first place!

Thus, the main area of concern to lower high blood pressure and reduce hypertension, is to reduce the amount of accumulated cholesterol and fat substances lodged in the arterial walls and over and above the various prescription drugs which help you to do this, you need to be extremely cautious about what you eat. Changing your diet would also involve bringing about some drastic changes in your lifestyle too.

This means giving up on alcohol, smoking and including mild to moderate physical exercise in your daily living. The essence of changing your diet to control high blood pressure or hypertension is to include those foods that reduce cholesterol and avoid those foods that precipitate the crisis. While including foods like fruits, vegetables and dairy products with low fat content is warranted, you go to reduce or even bar the intake of saturated fat completely.

It might be interesting to know that processed foods, which Americans devour in enormous quantities, are rich in fat and sodium content, both of which contribute to high blood pressure. According to HBP experts, people who suffer from hypertension ought to limit their daily sodium intake to less than 3000 mg, which interestingly, ranges between 7000 to 9000 mg per day for an average American.

So what is the recommended diet for people suffering from high blood pressure or hypertension? According to American Heart Association the right breakup of the caloric values from essential food groups for a HBP patient should be: 25% total calories from fat, 50% carbohydrates, 15% protein, and 10% from fiber. This would normally mean that you have to reduce your intake of fats and increase the intake of fibers, antioxidants, vitamins and minerals. These could be a rough guideline for patients of HBP wanting to reduce their blood cholesterol content and return to normal blood pressure levels:


* At least six servings of wholegrain should form part of the daily diet. Rye bread, brown rice, muesli, cereals and oatmeal are ideal items for breakfast rather than stuffing yourself with processed meats and sweetened beverages.

* While we all know that vegetables are good and viable alternatives to red meat and the like, include lots of it and legumes as well in your daily diet. Vegetables help not only in lowering your high blood pressure but helps in the maintenance of overall health too. Kidney beans, split peas and lentils are good sources of fiber and are rich in vitamins and minerals. It is recommended to have at least 5 servings of vegetables daily in the diet plan for a HBP patient. Fruits also help in the lowering of high blood pressure and 4 servings per day are what are recommended.

* Doctors usually would advise you to avoid foods which trigger high blood pressure and taking such foods only make matters more complicated. These include excessive amounts of coffee, sugary drinks, animal fats, foods cooked in oil etc. It is safer to switch to healthier oils like soybean, rice bran or olive oil for cooking.

* Alcohol in excess is dangerous for people who suffer from high blood pressure, especially beers, since this beverage not only rises your already high blood pressure but could even damage the arterial walls too.

Those are only a few strategies of many to help you lower and even successfully take control of your high blood pressure.

If you suffer from high blood pressure and would like more info on natural treatment for hypertension go to http://www.naturaltreatmentforhypertension.com

Natural Treatment for Hypertension

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