High Blood Pressure Diet Guidelines

A nutritious diet and a healthful lifestyle can help keep your blood pressure within a healthy range.

More on Blood Pressure
6 Easy Ways to Cut Sodium
8 Great Ways to Lower Blood Pressure: Sodium Aside

Nearly one in three U.S. adults has high blood pressure—often called a “silent killer” because it usually presents no symptoms. Blood pressure reflects the amount of blood your heart pumps and the resistance it meets in your arteries: the more blood, and the narrower and more rigid your arteries (healthy vessels are elastic), the higher your blood pressure. The higher your blood pressure, the harder your heart has to work to do its job—which is why uncontrolled high blood pressure can sometimes lead to a heart attack or stroke.

Fortunately, eating a nutritious diet and leading an overall healthful lifestyle can help keep your blood pressure within a healthy range. The nutrition experts at EatingWell recommend the following steps to control blood pressure.

Aim for a healthy weight

Being overweight increases your risk of developing high blood pressure. When you gain weight, the amount of blood circulating through your body increases. This increases the pressure of blood flow against your artery walls, which puts added strain on your heart. Studies suggest that, if you’re overweight, losing as little as 10 percent of your current weight can help lower your blood pressure.

For information about losing weight, explore The EatingWell Diet in depth.

Move more

Exercise makes your heart stronger so it can pump more blood with less effort. Research suggests that, for some people, regular exercise can improve blood pressure as much as some medications used to treat hypertension. Daily physical activity also can help prevent a “normal” blood pressure from creeping into a risky range—which often happens as one ages. Aim for 30 minutes of exercise daily. And stick with it: the benefits last only as long as you maintain your exercise regime.

DASH toward balanced eating

Studies show that following an eating regime that medical experts call the DASH diet (its formal name is “Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension”) helps lower blood pressure. The nutritionally balanced plan includes plenty of fruits and vegetables and several daily servings of low-fat dairy. It emphasizes whole (versus refined) grains and modest amounts of lean proteins, including poultry and fish, to minimize intake of unhealthy saturated fats. For a copy of the plan, visit http://www.nhlbi.nih.gov/health/public/heart/hbp/dash/how_plan.html