How to lower your blood pressure - Pt 2

Good Day,

I just read your article on the usefulness of aspirin and found it very informative. I wonder if you would be able to advise me on some tips for lowering blood pressure. I am cutting down on salt intake. I avoid eating processed and canned foods, and was wondering if you have any other suggestions on the subject.

Dear Reader,

Medication to control high blood pressure should be a last resort, since most drugs have significant side effects. Drugs which lower blood pressure work in different ways and some drugs have more than one action. One single anti-hypertensive drug is often not adequate for control.

Unhealthy lifestyle factors that contribute to high blood pressure include being overweight, drinking excessive alcohol, having too much saturated fats and salt (sodium) and too little potassium, too few fruits, vegetables, essential fatty acids and doing too little aerobic exercising.

If we have borderline to mild hypertension, we may manipulate unhealthy lifestyle factors to lower and control our blood pressure.

Exercise regularly, at least 30 minutes most days.

Lose excess weight and blood pressure should fall too.

Go easy on (sodium) salt. If you try to eliminate it from the diet, you should succeed in reduced consumption, since there's 'hidden' salt in many foods such as canned foods, smoked and other preserved foods. Use the fresh alternatives.

Eat more potassium-rich foods, since high potassium/low-sodium consumption is essential to maintaining normal blood pressure. These foods include fruits and vegetables, especially tomatoes, bananas, papaya, okra, cucumbers, cabbage, sweet peppers and callaloo.

Potassium helps our kidneys to flush sodium out of the system. Increase intake of fibre-rich foods like oats, prunes, raisins, peas, seeds and nuts. The extra fibre helps reduce blood cholesterol, so there's less gunk to stick to walls of our blood vessels.

If you usually drink alcohol, consume fewer than three units per day.

Consume fewer animal and dairy fats.

If you smoke, stop.

Supplement the diet with omega-3 fatty acids (e.g. fish oil), since some studies are showing a link between high consumption and lower blood pressure.

Meditate at least once or twice per day, and manage stress.

Dr Dahlia McDaniel is a pharmacist with a doctorate in public health; email: yourhealth@gleanerjm.com.