Hypertension – Dietary Factors

Following on from my introduction to hypertension and lifestyle factors, I want to explore the link between diet and hypertension in this blog.

Optimise your Gut Flora

Compared to a placebo, people with high blood pressure who consumed probiotics lowered systolic blood pressure (the top number) by 3.56 mm Hg and diastolic blood pressure (the bottom number) by 2.38 mm Hg1.  Including taking probiotics, its is helpful to avoid sugar and processed foods.  I should mention that naturally fermented foods in your diet, may contain about 100 times the amount of bacteria than found in a bottle of high potency probiotics. But I appreciate form a practical point of view, buying probiotics is much easier!

Eat a Healthy Diet

I appreciate this is very common advice.  In 1998 in the journal of Diabetes reported that nearly two-thirds of the test subjects who were insulin resistant also high high blood pressure.  Insulin resistance is directly attributed to a high sugar, high carbohydrate diet especially if combined with inadequate exercise.

Avoiding processed foods (due to their being high in sugar/fructose, grains, trans fat, and other damaged fats) is my number one recommendation if you have high blood pressure2. Instead, make whole, ideally organic, foods the focus of your diet. As you reduce processed foods, and other sources of non-vegetable carbs, from your diet, you’ll want to replace them with healthy fat.

Read Part 4

References

1 Hypertension July 21, 2014

2 Metabolism. 2012 May;61(5):641-51.

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    • We only notice the worse area of pain - so if our right shoulder is more painful, we have a tendency to assume our left shoulder is OK.
    • Trigger Points
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    • Nervous Tension
    • Physical Stress
    • Psyschological Stress
    • Environmental Factors - cold, damp
    • Illness
    • Lack of rest or sleep
    • Poor Diet
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    • Tension headaches
    • Referred pain
    • Painful movement of a joint or limb
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    • Maintain good posture
    • Manage your stress
    • Follow a daily stretching routine
    How can I get rid of my trigger points?
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  • Introduction to Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness

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  • The Impact of Sitting All Day – Part 1

    For most people know they sit all day as part of their job.  Recently there has been a spate of article in the press about the impact of sitting all day, so I wanted to take some time to look at the impact of sitting all day.

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    I recommend the Yoga position cat-cow for increasing your spinal flexibility. (Click here for guidelines on how to do cat-cow.)

    When you sit for a long time, a muscle called the psoas travels through the abdominal cavity and, when it tightens, pulls the upper lumbar spine forward. Upper-body weight rests entirely on the ischial tuberosity (sitting bones) instead of being distributed along the arch of the spine.  A sports massage or a deep tissue massage can release a tight psoas muscle.  

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