High blood pressure or hypertension is known as the "silent killer." Increases the risk of heart disease. According to WHO, more than one billion people worldwide suffer from hypertension.
For hypertensive patients, proper nutrition is important to control blood pressure. Such products include berries and fruits.
For example, according to a study, long-term consumption of lingonberry juice naturally reduces blood pressure and improves the condition of blood vessels
Dried fruits for hypertension
With an increased risk of cardiovascular diseases, nutritionists recommend including various dried fruits in the diet. They support the functioning of the heart, provide the body with vitamins and minerals, among which the most valuable is potassium, which stabilizes blood pressure.
Beneficial for the cardiovascular system:
- Dried apricots are dried apricots without seeds. Rich in zinc, potassium, magnesium, iron, B vitamins. Improves blood and the condition of the nervous system. It is recommended to use for arrhythmia, hypertension, atherosclerosis, and a tendency to edema. Reduce the risk of recurrent heart attacks and strokes.
- Raisins are dried grapes. Strengthens the nervous system, blood vessels, reduces cardiac stress. Normalizes metabolism, reduces the risk of osteoporosis, improves immunity.
- Prunes have a beneficial effect on blood vessels. If you eat 2-3 berries every day, within a week your blood pressure will begin to decrease, the functioning of your stomach and intestines will improve, and your metabolism will become more active.
- Dates normalize blood pressure, improve blood and brain function. Increases the body's endurance and performance.
- Figs relieve vascular spasms, thin the blood, and prevent venous insufficiency. Helps normalize lipid metabolism, increases hemoglobin.
Due to their high calorie content, it is not recommended to eat more than 150 g of dried fruits per day.
Dried fruits and berries can be added to cereals, baked goods, desserts, and can be used to make compotes, medicinal mixtures, and healthy sweets.
Vegetables that lower blood pressure
We figured out which fruits help with blood pressure. Now let's get acquainted with vegetables that lower blood pressure. The desired results can be achieved by including in the menu:
- Carrot. It will be useful due to its high carotene content. A substance that has a beneficial effect on the condition of the myocardium and blood vessels.
- Beet. The vegetable should be eaten fresh, not heat-treated. It normalizes blood pressure levels throughout the day, practically bringing it to the physiological norm.
- Any fresh greens. A particularly effective remedy for normalizing high blood pressure.
Regular consumption of these vegetables reduces the level of “bad” cholesterol in the blood and promotes the removal of toxins. A vegetable diet normalizes blood flow, improving the effect of drugs on the body when diagnosing essential hypertension.
You can reduce blood pressure with fresh garlic. You need to eat one clove daily. A stable decrease in blood pressure by approximately 5–10 points can be expected after 7–11 days. In case of a combined course of hypertension and angina pectoris, a person’s menu must include:
- cabbage – cauliflower and Brussels sprouts;
- tomatoes;
- celery (root);
- sweet bell pepper.
To cleanse blood vessels from cholesterol plaques that narrow the lumen of blood vessels, it is useful to eat pumpkin and cucumber seeds. Unpeeled boiled or baked potatoes provide good results.
Beverages
For high blood pressure, a large number of different drinks are used as a tasty, effective, safe method to reduce blood pressure: from plain water, natural juices to hibiscus tea.
Water for hypertension
The most affordable drink to maintain blood pressure at a normal level. The mechanism of action is simple: a lack of fluid in the body leads to dehydration, thickening of the blood, disruption of normal blood flow and, as a result, increased blood pressure.
If you have hypertension, you need to drink enough water, which is very simple to calculate: 30-40 ml are needed per 1 kg of weight. The gap between the numbers suggests the correspondence of the amount of liquid drunk depending on weather conditions (wet-dry), time of year (hot-cold), and individual physiological characteristics of a person.
For example, a person weighing 70 kg per day requires: 70 x 30 (40) = 2.1 l (2.8 l). This takes into account only water, not liquids found in other foods and drinks.
Water:
- strengthens the walls of blood vessels;
- flushes out harmful cholesterol and toxins;
- adjusts the total volume of circulating blood, helping the heart;
- improves blood composition;
- Replenishes fluid lost through sweat, breathing, and through the digestive system.
There are many schemes for the correct drinking regime (including the proposed calculation), but the most popular of all others is the rule of 8 glasses: supposedly this is how much spring water a person needs to drink per day. However, despite its apparent simplicity, the rule is dangerous. An increase in the total volume of circulating blood above normal will lead to excessive stress on the heart with all the ensuing consequences. Each person is individual, so for hypertensive patients, calculating the required daily amount of water is vital.
Mineral waters, especially with gas, are not recommended for hypertensive patients, and “Essentuki” is completely dangerous because it disrupts the body’s potassium-sodium balance, causing an increase in blood pressure.
Milk and dairy products
Of all types of dairy drinks, only skim milk can normalize blood pressure, saturating the blood with calcium, strengthening the walls of blood vessels, thereby normalizing vascular parameters. Why low fat? Because in this drink there is calcium instead of fat, in all other versions it’s the other way around.
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Among dairy drinks, low-fat yogurt and 1% kefir have a similar effect.
Natural juices
There are a lot of hypotensive juices: vegetable, berry, fruit. The most useful is beet juice. It contains a lot of potassium and folic acid, which regulate blood pressure levels in the human body.
Beets contain muscle relaxants that relieve vascular spasms and improve microcirculation. The downside of the drink is its specific taste, which not everyone likes, so it is usually mixed with more pleasant carrot or pumpkin juice. Carrots add carotene to the cocktail, which improves the elasticity of blood vessels, and pumpkin adds the ability to remove excess fluid and salts from the body. A spoonful of honey can be the icing on the cake.
Among fruit juices that lower blood pressure, apple and pomegranate juice should be highlighted. Apples, with the help of pectin, remove toxins, and pomegranate prevents the formation of atherosclerotic plaques due to its enzyme composition, improving blood flow to the myocardium. Half a glass of any juice every day is enough to maintain normal blood pressure.
Apricot and grapefruit juices are suitable for hypertensive patients. The first has a diuretic effect, and the second strengthens blood vessels due to the maximum concentration of vitamin C.
Berry juices are also useful, especially:
- cranberry juice is a powerful antioxidant that rejuvenates the body and vascular system, and also exhibits vasodilating properties;
- juice from chokeberry, which contains vitamins C, P, flavonoids. capable of improving the structure of blood vessels;
- blackcurrant juice – a source of vitamin C for capillaries.
Of course, there are other juices, from potato to exotic persimmon juice, we are talking about the most effective for lowering blood pressure.
Tea
For people suffering from hypertension, green, black tea (an alternative to coffee), and herbal tea are useful, but red Hibiscus tea is recognized as the most effective. Yes, this is, in fact, not tea - just dry leaves of a special plant - hibiscus. A natural antioxidant that rejuvenates the entire body as a whole, regenerating blood vessels, Hibiscus exhibits a diuretic effect, but most importantly, it contains biologically active substances that are similar in their action to remedies for high blood pressure and heart failure.
Among herbal teas, drinks based on stevia and mint should be highlighted. The first one controls cholesterol levels, the second one dilates blood vessels due to menthol, normalizing blood pressure.
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Compotes
Another simplest, budget option for maintaining blood pressure within normal limits is drinking drinks. The most popular:
- compote of dried fruits, raisins, lemon - a source of vitamins and microelements that normalize metabolism, heart function, blood vessels;
- compote of prunes with honey - works similarly;
- chokeberry compote.
For taste, you can add a sprig of tarragon, a natural aphrodisiac.
Fish and seafood
One of the reasons for high blood pressure in old age is a decrease in the elasticity of the walls of blood vessels and a reflex narrowing of their lumen. Omega-3 and omega-6 fatty acids, which are found in large quantities in fatty varieties of sea fish and seafood, can help in the fight against this phenomenon. They are integrated into metabolic chains, displace cholesterol from them and restore the endothelium of veins, arteries and capillaries, “rejuvenate” them from the inside.
Therefore, older people are recommended to eat cod, pangasius, mackerel, and pink salmon at least 1-2 times a week.
Dairy products
Kefir and milk. You need to drink at least one glass of drink a day. Natural, with a minimum percentage of fat content (about 1.5-2).
It is not recommended to buy ultra-pasteurized types because they contain a lot of sugar. This is a ploy by manufacturers to get consumers to pay.
The effect of using fermented milk products is delayed. However, everyone can drink it, even patients with hypotension.
Although milk and kefir lower blood pressure, they do so gently and within small limits. Basically, they enrich the body with calcium if it is sufficiently digestible.
Berry drinks
In traditional medicine recipes you can find many berries that lower blood pressure. One of the most frequently given berries is the cranberry. It contains vitamin C and has anti-inflammatory properties.
Juice based on it can be helpful for people experiencing changes in blood pressure. Daily consumption of cranberry drink helps reduce the inflammatory process on the walls of blood vessels. It normalizes blood pressure well, dilates blood vessels, while normalizing blood flow to the heart.
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Useful berries for hypertension, from which you can make medicinal cocktails:
- Kalina. Contains flavonoids and essential vitamins.
- Black currant. Rich in ascorbic acid.
- Chokeberry. Strengthens veins and blood vessels, improves blood circulation.
- Blueberries and blueberries. Removes cholesterol and cleans blood vessels.
Raspberries
Berries that lower blood pressure due to their high potassium content. The trace element works in close contact with sodium. As potassium levels rise, sodium is rapidly excreted, which increases blood pressure and retains fluid. Raspberries contain pectin, ketones, and catechins. Strengthens the walls of veins and arteries, eliminates the fragility of capillaries, improves the properties of blood.
Fruits, leaves, stems of the plant are used for hypertension:
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- Infusion of leaves. 6 fresh sheets are poured with 200 ml of boiling water. Close the lid and leave for half an hour. Drink at a time, sweetened with sugar or honey. Course 7 days. Repeat after a five-day break.
- Vitamin cocktail. 50 g of fresh berries, 1 green apple (peeled) are pureed in a blender. Pour warm milk over the mixture and drink immediately.
- Raspberry and linden decoction. 50 g of dry (or 100 g of fresh) berries, the same amount of linden flowers, pour 0.5 liters of hot water, cook over low heat for 5 minutes. Drink in a day. The decoction reduces blood pressure and eliminates shortness of breath.
Spices and seasonings
Ginger has blood pressure-normalizing properties. Although formally it cannot be attributed to this group. This is a full-fledged independent product.
- The substances based on it thin the blood, acting as a natural antiplatelet agent.
- In addition, they help relax the vascular muscles, preventing further spasm and an increase in tonometer readings.
Turmeric is called a good help in prevention and even therapy. The substance of the same name in its composition helps to quickly reduce blood pressure, but gently, and therefore does not create health risks.
Hot cayenne pepper. He's chili. The product is used to rapidly reduce blood pressure. This is a reflex response to the use of capsaicin, which the product is so rich in.
But this can be dangerous, since a sharp jump in blood pressure does not affect the condition of the blood vessels (their elasticity). Pepper is allowed for hypertensive patients, but it should be eaten with caution.
