High Blood Pressure Diet
By Bobby Gill

High Blood Pressure Diet

A high diet is designed to decrease sodium, increase potassium, and lessen calories. This diet can be easy to follow if you cut down on eating out. Diet specific meals can be made at home and eaten without seeing other unhealthy food options. A high diet is something anyone can start to control and reduce or even minimize the harmful effects of high (BP). There are many harmful effects - both short and long term. The diets for high BP are also called holistic healing foods because of their numerous positive impacts. To make a high BP diet more effective it's essential that you start to take regular exercise.

Lowering your consumption of sodium is an important part of a high BP diet. Salt is also called sodium chloride, and it's the sodium in salt that can be bad for your health. Research shows that lowering the consumption of sodium as part of a high BP diet will help to lower blood pressure. It is important to know that fast foods, take aways and many ready meals (microwave meals) often contain very high salt levels and should be avoided.. Drinking plenty of water is a good healthy idea. The balanced high BP diet should include sparse amounts of saturated and trans-fats (red meat, fast food), and moderate amounts of other fats (olives, canola oil).

Even if you do not have a high BP problem, a high BP diet can protect you against hypertension.. High BP can cause very serious damage to your body thus it is important to develop a high BP diet that best fits your individual needs. There are many to choose from and can be found quickly via an internet search. One such diet is the Gi diet which is great for losing weight but also is an effective diabetes and high BP diet. It works by using foods that have a low or medium impact on glucose. Another one is the Leptin Diet for those who are told that their weight is contributing to their high BP. Reducing fat intake is the number one rule of a high BP diet. Sodium is another element, which has to be avoided in a high BP diet. People should try and reduce the quantity of food servings. When it comes to creating a high BP diet, there are just two general rules: eat more foods that can help get rid of cholesterol in your blood and eat fewer foods that could pile them up. Think wholegrain! A good high BP diet would contain more than six servings of wholegrain in a given day. Include as many as five servings of vegetables per day in your high BP diet. A high BP diet must emphasize the role of whole grains,fruits, vegetables, low fat dairy and lean meat products. Include into your diet low fat, semi-skimmed milk/yogurt, cottage cheese, white meat (poultry, without skin),white fish and vegetable protein sources such as pulses and Soya. There are several ways to boost calcium in a high BP diet. The latest version of the Dietary Guidelines for Americans has stressed the importance of potassium in a high BP diet. Processed food is another source of sodium, and should be avoided.

BP

Pressure while the heart is at rest between beats is indicated by the bottom number of the measure and is called diastolic pressure. It is common knowledge that your diet and how much you eat have a significant effect upon your long term BP. Maintaining a healthy weight is good insurance. Some experts say that losing 10 percent of your current weight can help lower BP. People who are genetically sensitive to sodium experience high BP from excesses in salt intake. Dietary factors have been shown to influence BP. Potassium helps maintain intracellular osmotic pressure, which is the force required to stop the flow of water across a membrane. Eat calcium and magnesium rich foods to help reduce BP. In most cases, high BP signs are simply the individual discovering they have hypertension during a visit to their doctor or other medical professional who administers a BP test. Nearly one-third of the people don't know they have it. Many people have high BP for years without knowing it. Uncontrolled high BP can lead to stroke, heart attack, heart failure or kidney failure. This is why high BP is often called the "silent killer. According to the American Heart Association, most people with heart disease can have sex safely -- and that includes those with high BP.

Diet To Control BP

Diet has been utilized as a primary way to treat diseases since 1939. Dietary changes and weight loss are called nonpharmacologic measures. In other words - no drugs! Research has shown that a person's diet can affect their and that dietary changes are an effective approach for controlling and possibly even preventing hypertension. Dietary changes should take into consideration a person's current diet, cooking habits, and eating habits. Diet and BP are closely related and fiber is one of the key ingredients of a healthy diet. Dieticians insist that hypertensive patients must look for the word "whole" as in "whole grain" in the ingredient list while buying packaged foods, breakfast cereals, crackers, pasta, and breads. The ingredient ( whether whole wheat, oats, rye, or another grain) should be listed first or second in the list. Dietary intake of calcium and vitamin D rich foods, not supplements, gave women a reduced risk for developing high BP. A poor diet that is high in saturated fats and salt is known to contribute to high BP development. Diet, weight loss, exercise and lowering salt alone could lower BP in a majority of people. Most government food and health agencies around the world are encouraging a reduction in dietary salt / sodium levels. Salt is often added to processed foods to make them taste better. Good dietary sources of potassium include bananas, potatoes, avocados, tomato juice, grapefruit juice, and acorn squash. Sometimes sodium is essential for our diet, but most of us eat too much of it. Increase your fiber diet, lower salt intake regular exercise help in decreasing high BP.

High BP is also observed in children, kids and even infants. Probably the most familiar piece of dietary advice: eat lots of fruits and vegetables. Reducing the stress in your life, eating

a healthier diet and exercising regularly can help to lower your BP which, in turn, can reduce your risks of heart attacks and stroke. Eating a vegetarian diet may reduce elevated BP and protect against hypertension. One study found that people with mild hypertension have a lower systolic BP (the top number of the BP reading) when they ate a vegetarian diet compared to when they ate a standard diet. A strict vegetarian diet may not be necessary: one study showed that eating more fruits and vegetables, low-fat dairy products, and a diet low saturated and total fat lowered BP. One major feature of a vegetarian diet that may affect BP is the amount of dietary fiber; an increased amount of fiber is associated with decreased BP.  Moreover, high-fiber diets may have other health benefits, including lower total cholesterol and insulin levels.

Lifestyle

Lifestyle and dietary changes can lower high BP somewhat and may help you avoid medications or reduce the number of drugs you do need. Immediately begin to lose weight if you are overweight. The loss of some excess weight can make a big difference. If hypertension is something your family members deal with on a frequent basis, normal BP may not be something you can maintain without making some changes to your lifestyle. As for red wine, when drunk in moderation, is known to be a good antioxidant, combating the damaging effects of unsaturated fats, smoking, and other harmful lifestyle habits. Creating a healthy eating plan will decrease the risk of living an unhealthy lifestyle. Nonpharmacologic measures entail lifestyle adjustments that can be difficult to start and maintain. According to guidelines from the National Heart Lung and Blood Institutes (2003), both prehypertensive and hypertensive subjects should make diet, exercise and lifestyle changes to reduce or prevent the onset of hypertension and reduce the risk of heart disease. A healthy diet combined with a healthy lifestyle with the right balance of exercise, and riddance of harmful habits like smoking and alcohol indulgence help to combat the risks of high BP. Once the necessary lifestyle adjustments are made, the indivual will often find their BP symptom restored to a more normal range. As long as the new lifestyle is maintained high BP becomes less of a worry but should still be carefully monitored on a regular basis. Active monitoring of BP, heart rate, weight, body fat, body mass index (BMI) and blood oxygen levels when combined with proper diet, nutrition and physical fitness can help ensure a longer, more healthy lifestyle. A sedentary lifestyle leads to excess weight. Excessive body weight, smoking, sedentary lifestyles, excess alcohol, and highsalt or sodium intake are easy triggers to a high BP reading. Other lifestyle changes that can improve your BP are increasing physical activity and reducing body weight.

Lifestyle risk factors that can be prevented or changed:

* Smoking

* Lack of physical activity (a sedentary lifestyle)

* Diet

* Weight

If you have a lifestype risk factor, extra effort should be made to change that factor. Drug treatment to lower BP may be advised for:those who have a that remains at 160/100 mmHg or above after a trial of any lifestyle changes.

Women and Diet

If you drink, do so moderately—that means one drink a day for women, two drinks for men. On the other hand, drinking one (for women) or two (for men) alcoholic beverages per day appears to benefit the heart in people greater than 40 years. Women over age 65 should take aspirin to prevent heart attack and stroke only if their BP is controlled and the benefit is greater than the risk of gastrointestinal bleeding and brain hemorrhage. Women tend to worry about hypertension and high BP. High impacts pregnant women causing complications to the would-be mother, the would-be baby and the developing fetus. Since pregnant mothers are extremely susceptible to the side effects of medications, physicians use extreme caution in prescribing any type of medication to pregnant women. Surprisingly a moderate amount of alcohol can be consumed by those suffering with hypertension. Hypertension is on the rise for women in the United States, but a new study in The American Heart Association journal, Hypertension shows that drinking fat free milk reduced their risk for having high BP. Harvard researchers looked at the diets of almost 30,000 middle-aged and older women and found a relationship with dietary intake of calcium and vitamin D with reducing the risk for high BP. They saw the biggest risk reduction in women who drank two or more servings of fat free milk each day by up to 10 percent risk reduction when compared to women that had fat free milk products less than once a month. Another cause of high BP is hormonal changes in women.

Conclusion

If you're one of the many people who has high BP, you yourself can help control it by following a high diet. A healthy high blood diet is achieved via the exclusion of those things that could cause more damage or raise your BP or add other problems. You should eat foods high in potassium and avoid saturated fats, preservatives, and salt. A successful high BP diet concentrates on healthful and delicious foods from nature that lower naturally. Generally a high BP diet is advisable simply for optimal health. Additionally, calcium channel blockers can aid a high BP diet by controlling the buildup of calcium in the arteries. If you have high BP then the most effective way to deal with it is to consult your doctor, listen to your doctor, and get on a high BP diet. Just losing weight on any diet should be an effective control for high BP. The first thing your doctor will tell you is that you need to develop an exercise routine and adopt a high BP diet in order to get your BP  under control. Your doctor may also prescribe a treatment using medicines to also help control your high BP. The most imortant thing you can do to help yourself is get on a high diet and use that coupled with exercise to lose weight and control your high BP.