Diet for Hypertension Patients

Hypertension, the medical term for high blood pressure, affects millions of people. High blood pressure can cause strokes, heart attacks and kidney disease. Hypertension may require medication, and it will also require that you be on a specific diet.

Diet plays a big role in controlling your hypertension. The foods you eat can either make your high blood pressure worse, or can help to lower it. How you design your diet can help keep your hypertension manageable.

Low Sodium

Many foods increase blood pressure, and need to be avoided or drastically cut back.

One of the biggest antagonists for high blood pressure is salt. If your doctor tells you that you have high blood pressure, he will surely explain to you that you will need to cut salt out of your diet, or significantly reduce it. If you reduce salt in your diet, your blood pressure will go down, says Emilia Klapp, R.D., B.S.

When you add other good dietary practices, it can lower your blood pressure even more.

Cut back on frozen dinners, pizza, canned soups, broths and salad dressings, all high in sodium. Avoid snack foods such as sodas, pretzels, chips and salted popcorn. Avoid processed seafood, and packaged lunch meats. When salting your own foods, use sea salt rather than regular table salt.

Vitamins and Supplements

Vitamins and supplements are an important part of your diet to help reduce blood pressure.

Supplements play a big role in controlling blood pressure, says Michael Janson, M.D., president of the American Preventive Medical Association.

One such supplement is magnesium. Magnesium helps to relax the smooth muscle of blood vessels, which helps the blood to flow better through them.

Coenzyme Q10 is an enzyme known to help lower blood pressure, decreasing bad cholesterol levels and raising good ones.

Garlic helps lower blood pressure by increasing the activity of nitric oxide. Nitric oxide is responsible for keeping the vessels smooth and free of spasms so blood flows more efficiently through the vessels.

Other supplements that may help to lower blood pressure are taurine, an amino acid that may help to regulate the part of the nervous system responsible for increased blood pressure, and an herb known as hawthorn.

Fruits and Vegetables

Fruits and vegetables have always been recognized as a healthy part of any diet; however, they are even more important in a hypertension diet. Fruits and vegetables can help to lower your blood pressure.

When including fresh fruits and vegetables, remember color is important. Try to use a variety of yellows, greens, reds, purples, oranges, and even white for cauliflower. The more colorful you are with your choices, the more well-rounded your diet will be and the better your line of defense against hypertension.

Fruits and vegetables offer natural anti-oxidants, as well as vitamins and minerals that help to reduce blood pressure. DASH--Dietary Approach to Stop Hypertension--recommends between nine and 14 servings of fruits and vegetables each day. A serving size is considered a half-cup of cooked vegetables or one cup of raw vegetables. For fruits, a baseball-size serving of fruit or four ounces of juice is the recommended serving size.