Lowering Blood Pressure Naturally – 7 Tips

We’ll start with basic Q & As about high blood pressure (hypertension).

What is blood pressure?

Blood pressure is part of our body’s natural, normal functions. It is the force of blood pushing against our artery walls. But when blood pressure remains high, it can lead to serious health problems.

High blood pressure, or hypertension, is the #1 risk factor for the approximately 800,000 strokes Americans suffer each year.

Hypertension is also responsible for about half of all deaths from heart disease.

What numbers constitute high blood pressure?

For years, high blood pressure was defined as 140/90 or higher.

But in revised guidelines established in 2017, the American Heart Association, the American College of Cardiology, and nine other health organizations declared that high blood pressure is now defined as 130 and higher for systolic blood pressure (the top number), or 80 and higher for diastolic blood pressure (the bottom number).

The changes were made because of the overwhelming body of research showing that waiting till 140/90 is waiting too long.  Dramatic increases in heart attack and stroke risk do not begin with blood pressure readings of 140/90. They begin at much lower readings like 130/80.

Lowering Blood Pressure Naturally – 7 Tips

Numerous studies over the past three decades have found that hypertension can largely be prevented and/or reversed simply by changing our diet and lifestyle.

For example, the Pritikin Program of diet, exercise, and lifestyle-change has been documented in peer-reviewed research to greatly improve blood pressure numbers.

What’s more, studies have found that within two to three weeks, many people leave the Pritikin Longevity Center, where they learned healthy food and fitness habits, no longer needing their medications for hypertension, or with their dosages greatly reduced.

Below are 7 key diet/lifestyle tips recommended by the physicians, registered dietitians, exercise physiologists, and other faculty at Pritikin Longevity Center.

1. Eat at least 5 servings of vegetables and 4 servings of fruits daily.

A vegetable- and fruit-rich eating plan helps ensure that you’re eating plenty of foods full of stomach-filling volume, yet low in calories, enhancing your weight-loss efforts. Losing excess weight is one of the most effective ways to lower blood pressure.

Eating a lot of fruits and vegetables also means you’re eating rich sources of potassium, magnesium, and calcium. Many studies have found that foods plentiful in these minerals help blunt some of the toxic effects of sodium.

2. Cut back on calorie-dense foods.

Calorie-dense foods tend to be foods loaded with fat, sugar, and/or refined grains. Eating significantly less of these foods every day will boost your weight-loss efforts.

Keep in mind that keeping track of the calorie density of the foods you eat is different from counting calories.

Calorie density is the number of calories in a given volume of food. Certain foods have more calories packed into them – bite for bite, or pound for pound – than others. Fresh tomatoes, for example, have 90 calories per pound. Bagels have about 1,300 calories per pound. Yes, that means that with each bite of bagel, you’re taking in 14 times as many calories as each bite of tomato.

Knowing a food’s calorie density is vital because when we sit down to eat, we pretty much eat (or want to eat) based on volume. We want to fill up our stomachs, curb hunger, and feel satisfied. Well, as you can see from the tomato vs bagel calorie density numbers, satisfying our hunger on bagels is going to ratchet up a lot more calories than satisfying our hunger with vegetables like tomatoes.

Curbing hunger is vital for long-term weight-control success. No diet that leaves us feeling chronically hungry (which is what most calorie-counting diets do) will last for long. By contrast, paying attention to the calorie densities of the foods we eat allows us to fill up with hefty amounts of food, but not hefty amounts of calories.

The “Calories Per Pound” chart below gives you a sense of how widely varying the calorie density of different foods can be.

As a general rule, stick to the green categories (Vegetables to Lean Protein) which are essentially the Pritikin Eating Plan. By doing so, you’ll:

• You’ll naturally take in fewer calories.
• You’ll enjoy satisfying amounts of food throughout the day.
• You’ll never again feel, “I’m always hungry.”
• The foods you’re eating will be healthy and nutrition-rich – the best foods not only for losing excess weight but also for preventing or controlling hypertension, heart disease, diabetes, and many other health concerns.

Fruit

Nonfat Dairy Foods

Other Fiber- and Water-Rich Foods | Such as potatoes, sweet potatoes, and cooked-in-water whole grains like oatmeal, brown rice, and whole-grain pasta

Lean Sources of Protein | Such as fish, skinless white poultry, lean game meat like bison, egg whites, and legumes (beans) like pintos, garbanzos, and lentils

Fatty Sources of Protein | For example, beef, dark poultry with skin, and full-fat dairy foods like cheese

Refined, Dry Carbohydrates | Like breads, cold cereals, pretzels, crackers, baked chips, and dried fruit

Junk Food | Like candy bars, cookies, croissants, donuts, and potato chips

Butter/Margarine

Oils/Fats | Such as bacon grease, lard, shortening, olive oil and all other oils