Strategies for a Healthy Blood Pressure

Keeping Tabs on Your Blood Pressure?

It's important to have your blood pressure measured regularly. Hypertension - defined as having systolic and diastolic pressures greater than 140 and 90 mm/Hg - can exist for years without a single symptom. And if not controlled, high blood pressure increases the risk of serious health problems, including heart attack and stroke.

Hypertension affects nearly everyone eventually since the common type tends to develop gradually as one grows older. Fortunately, mildly elevated pressure often responds to diet and lifestyle changes.

The Basics: DASH and Exercise

It's been a decade since results from the landmark DASH study were published. DASH - the Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension - showed that a diet rich in fruits, veggies and low-fat dairy could significantly reduce blood pressure for most people. This way of eating is low in sodium, high in potassium, magnesium and calcium - minerals that can influence blood pressure. It is also low in saturated fat and can incorporate some of the "good" mono-unsaturated fats from olive oil (1). But the important thing to remember about DASH is that no one nutrient lowers blood pressure, rather it's following the DASH pattern overall that counts (2).

The second important factor for keeping blood pressure down is maintaining a healthy weight - and shedding some pounds if you're overweight. That means eating a low calorie version of the DASH diet and getting regular exercise to keep weight off (3).

Once you've mastered these basics, you can also explore some of the newly emerging approaches to managing blood pressure, and incorporate other potentially helpful foods and beverages as well.

Needlework for Hypertension? It Works!

Results of a recent rigorous trial have shown that acupuncture has a blood pressure lowering effect for people with mild to moderate hypertension. Half of the 160 participants in this study got regular 30 minute treatments several times weekly by traditional Chinese medicine experts (4). The other half received "sham" treatment consisting of needles placed at other non-effective sites. Those getting the real treatment experienced reductions in both systolic an diastolic pressure, while the "sham" group did not. Although the changes in blood pressure weren't massive, they were on par with those typically seen with ACE inhibitors, a common anti-hypertensive medication. The beneficial effects disappeared 3-6 months after the study ended, indicating the ongoing treatments are probably necessary.

Nibble of Dark Chocolate May Lower Pressure

Acupuncture may not appeal to everyone, but the results of another promising new study will bring smiles to the faces of chocolate lovers (5). Researchers assigned 44 adults with borderline or mild to moderate hypertension to consume a moderate daily serving of dark chocolate (6.3 gram) containing 30 mg of polyphenols or the same amount of white chocolate free of polyphenols. Both servings had only 30 calories. After 18 weeks, dark chocolate consumption led to modest but clinically significant reductions in systolic and diastolic pressure. A major cause of high blood pressure is stiffening of the arteries. Nitric oxide helps counteract this stiffening by helping arteries dilate when needed. The authors found that the polyphenols in dark chocolate were linked to nitric oxide production.

Pomegranate Juice May Be Helpful

Preliminary research from Israel reports that drinking about ¼ cup of pomegranate juice daily for a year modestly lowered blood pressure and reduced artery wall thickness in 10 patients with carotid artery stenosis and hypertension (6). More and larger studies are needed to confirm this finding, but pomegranate juice is rich in polyphenols and has antioxidant action.

References

1. 1. Shah M, et al. Effect of high-carb or high-cis-monounsaturated fat diets on blood pressure: a meta-analysis of intervention trials. Am J Clin Nutr 85:1251-6, 2007.
2. Reusser ME, et al. Reducing hypertensive CVD risk of African Americans. J Nutr 136:1099-102, 2006.
3. Delichatsios HK, et al. Influence of the DASH diet and other low-fat, high-carbohydrate diets on blood pressure. Curr Atheroscler Rep 7:446-54, 2005.
4. Flachskampf FK, et al. Randomized trial of acupuncture to lower blood pressure. Circulation 115:3121-9, 2007.
5. Taubert D, et al. Effects of low habitual cocoa intake on blood pressure and bioactive nitric oxide - A randomized controlled trial. JAMA 298:49-60, 2007.
6. Rosenblat AM, et al. Pomegranate juice consumption for 3 years by patients with carotid artery stenosis reduces common carotid intima-media thickness, blood pressure & LDL oxidation. Clin Nur 23:423-33, 2004.