Lower Your Blood Pressure Through Your Diet

Doctors always use blood pressure as a measure of a person's physical condition but what does it actually mean? Blood pressure is defined as the "resistance of blood flow against the artery walls". As blood travels through our body's via veins and arteries it applies force to the artery walls and this is where the determination of blood pressure comes from. 

The hose pipe analogy is a good way to explain this; when you turn the tap on slowly with a normal hose pipe the water flows naturally and under little force or pressure. However, if you turn the tap on faster (creating a bigger force or volume) the pressure inside the hose increases and the water speeds through. Another way to increase the speed of the flow is to squeeze the end making it smaller and therefore increasing the pressure and the water speeds up - but you can't sustain this for too long.

Within the body there are natural reasons for an increase in blood pressure such as:

• exercise - blood is travelling faster so therefore more force
• dehydration - blood becomes thicker
• illness - blood is travelling faster to deliver nutrients

Generally, these cause a blood pressure increase because the heart rate is increased causing the blood to travel at a faster rate or the blood is thicker causing the force to be higher. But our body is good at fixing this, however if it fails then this can lead to hypertension.

What Is Hypertension?

Hypertension is the name of long term high blood pressure. Normal blood pressure is 120/80 for males and 110/70 for females. The top number is the pressure as the heart contracts and the lower is when it relaxes. Sometimes you can go to the doctors office and get a higher reading but this could be due to many reasons such as anxiety or being unwell. Hypertension is only classified when you have a high blood pressure over 140/90 for a prolonged period of time.

What Can Cause Hypertension?

• Poor diet
• Lack of exercise
• Smoking
• Drinking
• Sedentary lifestyle
• Genetic/Hereditary factors

Many of the factors above can be changed or adapted to lower your risk of developing hypertension such as being more active or changing your diet.

The reason these can lead to problems, as with diet and sedentary life, is that fatty plaque gets left in the arteries or the arteries themselves become stiff which means they cannot change to accommodate more blood flow or the space within the artery is narrower - both leading to an increase in pressure.

See Also: Soak Up The Sun To Lower Blood Pressure And Prevent Heart Disease

Hypertension is not something to pretend isn't happening because it can lead on to much more serous complications. It can lead to heart attack or stroke and even developing further coronary heart diseases which will further increase the risk of heart attack. Changing your diet and exercise regime are the simplest and best ways to lower your risk of developing any such problems.

Foods To Lower Your Blood Pressure

If you already know you have a tendency to get high blood pressure or already have hypertension, simple diet changes can help. 

Beetroot

Within beetroot the active ingredient is nitrate and when we eat beetroot the bacteria that live in the mouth actually turn it into nitrite and this then becomes nitric oxide which is responsible for dilating the blood vessels (widening) which in turn lowers blood pressure.

Garlic

Within garlic one of the main ingredients is considered to be a chemical called allicin, and this is released when you cut up or crush garlic in your meals. This allicin is supposed to act on our kidneys causing them to change the levels of hormones in the body which in turn causes the blood vessels to widen and dilate.

Watermelon

The key ingredient her is called L-citruline and this also increases nitric oxide much like beetroot which can dilate the blood vessels, but also being made primarily of water it lowers the thickness of the blood allowing it travel more freely.

But don't just take my work for it, a study was completed by Dr Andy Webb of Kings College London to see the effects of eating these 3 foods over a period of time. Twenty eight volunteers with blood pressure over 130 ate the following - week 1 ate 2 gloves of garlic every day, week 2 ate 2 large slices of watermelon a day and week 3 ate 2 whole beetroots a day.

The results showed that there was a significant difference in blood pressure each week by 3-5mmol (measure of BP) from eating each of the foods. The biggest difference was seen from beetroot showing that adding this into your diet can naturally effect your pressure.

But be careful, you can have too much of a good thing.

Simply try adding beetroot to your salad once or twice a week and adding crushed garlic to a meal. Eat watermelon 3 times a week at least as part of your 5 a day. Steaming your vegetables is a great way to keep the nitrates locked in to get the most out of them.

There are other ways to lower your blood pressure through diet such as cutting down your salt intake - check your food packaging to see exactly how much it contains because you will be surprised. Cut down on your caffeine intake as well because this has been shown to increase blood pressure over a long period of time. Aim for 2-3 cups of coffee a day to be sure or switch to decaff.

See Also: Aerobic Exercise Lowers Blood Pressure In Hypertension Sufferers

Any fruit or vegetables that are high in nitrate will help to lower your BP - mainly because they dilate the blood vessels which allows the blood to travel more freely with less resistance.