When your health care provider discovers that you have high blood pressure, often the very first thing they will do is to prescribe you medicines.
Nevertheless, the correct diet can dramatically decrease your blood pressure as well; occasionally so much that there is no need for you to take these prescribed drugs. Here are some things you should avoid so as not to aggravate hypertension:
Fats
Saturated fats, particularly trans fats, are bad for both the heart and blood vessels. Simply because the circulatory system is already under a lot of stress with the high blood pressure, additional strain can be devastating.
Total fat intake should be decreased until it accounts for no more than 30% of your everyday intake. You can cut back by trying these suggestions: Use no more than 2 teaspoonfuls of cooking fat or oil per day. Don’t consume more than 2 teaspoonfuls of butter or margarine per day. Don’t consume more than one high fat meal per day, for example deep fried or breaded food, cheese dishes, fried potato, sausage, cream sauce, puff pastry, cakes, and chocolate. Eat sweets in moderation. They frequently contain hidden fat. Don’t consume more than one small dessert daily.
Salt
In certain people, having too much salt in food can cause already high blood pressure to get worse. For other people, eating the same quantity of salt might not affect their blood pressure. The problem is that health care providers can’t foretell which the case is for any given patient.
This, and the fact that a lot of salt is bad for the heart no matter what your blood pressure status, means that decreased sodium is really a strongly recommended part of a healthy diet. These suggestions are particularly essential within the setting of secondary high blood pressure due to renal problems.
By-and-large, high-salt meals, for example salted meat and sausage products, salted snacks, crisps, and salted nuts should be avoided. In the preparation of meals, sparing use should be made of salt, and you don’t need to add extra salt after cooking. It’s often forgotten that other condiments that people frequently use in their food, such as stock cubes, may have a high sodium content. It’s a lot better, and usually tastier, to use some herbs when you cook.
Alcohol
People with high blood pressure should stop themselves from drinking alcohol. While studies have noted that low levels of alcohol intake can have protective effects for the heart, and can possibly decrease the chance of developing high blood pressure, investigation has also clearly demonstrated that consuming alcohol if you have existing high blood pressure is harmful.
Alcohol directly raises blood pressure, and additionally may damage the walls of blood vessels, which may raise blood pressure even more and make it even harder to treat, while concurrently increasing the chance of complications.
Meat
Try to limit your consumption of meat to 2 to 4 times a week. You should try to cut back heavily on the consumption of processed meat such as sausage, bacon, and ham.
Making these few modifications to your diet can go a long way towards helping to lower your blood pressure, and helping you to live a long and healthy life.
An intelligent approach to your meal might help in lowering the blood pressure. You may need to look to make an attempt to have a nicely balanced, lower in calories meal that contains plenty of fresh fruit and vegetables, potatoes and rich. You must stay away from creature fats and salt where you can, and remember salt is usually hidden inside sliced meats, cheeses and prepared to focus on meals, so wherever possible you ought to attempt to avoid them.