To Control High Blood Pressure, Look Really Close at What You Are Eating

Here's the good news first - the average blood pressure level in people around the world has fallen. As good as it is to hear that, there still are some holdouts who find it hard to take control of their blood pressure problems. One of the most important things you can do to control high blood pressure that seems impervious to all your well-intentioned attempts would be to deal with the salt in your food. For a healthy blood pressure count, you need to make sure that there are no more than 1.5 teaspoons of salt in your diet a day. In America, we end up taking in almost 2 teaspoons of salt a day. If you're hastily mentally totaling up all the salt that you sprinkle over your food and spoon into the bubbling pot on the stove everyday, you would be surprised to know that that isn't where you make your mistake. Three-quarters of the salt we eat every day comes from other places. What other places? They're pretty well hidden.

Let's start with a product that really is innocuous as far as its effects on your blood pressure go - it's Kellogg's raisin bran. They advertise on the box that a serving of Raisin Bran gives you no more than 15% of your daily dietary allowance. While that sounds pretty modest, that's twice as much as almost every other cereal- Cheerios, Special K Protein Plus or anything else. How about that nutritious snack that you would prefer your child chose over junk food - beef jerky? Even the mild variety has a full 500mg to a serving - probably not the healthiest snack ever at twice the salt content of even a serving of potato chips. You eat a little bit of this, and you'll get a fifth of your daily recommended 1.5 teaspoon allowance of salt.

Certainly, your efforts trying to control high blood pressure can't have anything to do with your hankering for pancakes, now could it? Take a package of Kellogg's Eggo pancakes (perhaps they wouldn't sell as well if they called them Ego pancakes). Delicious as these are, would you believe that you get a whopping 500mg of sodium to the package? It's a full quarter of your daily allowance of salt. The syrup that comes with the package is even more salty goodness. But that is nothing compared to what looks like an otherwise very healthy snack - a vegetarian burger by MorningStar Farms. Here, you are buying one of these in the hope that you're doing the right thing for your health staying away from beef patties in your burgers. That would be a reasonable assumption - except for the fact that some of these have whopping amounts of salt - a full third per burger of your allowance. If you go low-salt, you aren't safe comforting yourself with gobs of ketchup either. Most major brands of ketchup are so heavily laced with salt that you would get about 100mg off just 1 tablespoon of the stuff.

Any attempt to control high blood pressure starts with the processed foods you buy. That's where most of the salty action is.

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Blood Pressure Control Is Health Control

If you have been told that your blood pressure is too high (that is, that you have hypertension), then what you were actually being told was that your lifestyle is not particularly healthy. This is because, unless your hypertension has come about because of ethnicity, age, sleeplessness or medication, you are doing something wrong in your daily life.

Blood pressure control for most people means initiating lifestyle alterations for the better or taking tablets for life. If you have hypertension but you cannot go to see your medical doctor as often as you would like, you could always buy a home blood pressure monitor and keep an eye on your blood pressure yourself.

The best sort to buy is an automatic digital monitor with a self-inflating cuff. It should also have a pulse monitor and several memories, although you can always use good old-fashioned pen and paper. They are not expensive any more and should cost between $30 and $100.

Some have a lifetime warranty and are as accurate as your GP's sphygmomanometer, which is the gold standard of blood pressure monitors. You should take your readings at the same time every day (or two or three times a day at the same times) and make a record of it or them. In this fashion you can compare your progress (or lack of it).

The first thing to do is quit smoking (if you smoke, obviously) and then cut down on heavy drinking sessions, if you do that). Doing that will improve your general health whether you have high arterial pressures or not.

The next thing to do is to reduce your weight, if you are overweight by dieting and exercise. If you are not overweight, you will still have to increase your degree of exercise and change your diet for the following reasons. Exercise decreases your arterial pressures and an excessive amount of salt (also called sodium) will raise your blood pressure.

So, whichever way you look at it, you will need to exercise more and take on a low-sodium diet. One of the ways of reducing sodium in your diet is by eating fresh fruit and vegetables and give up eating canned and other fast foods, which are stuffed with salt.

These lifestyle changes are not easy, so if you have to take some of them on board, consider getting help. For instance, you could use patches to help you quit smoking. You could visit the pub less frequently or simply go there later in the evening. You could ask your spouse to go on the diet as well or you could join a support group on or off line.

There really are plenty of resources out there to help you circumvent hypertension, but if you really cannot be bothered, then pop along to your physician's and get your first batch or high blood pressure tablets and be certain to make a repeat appointment, because you will be going back and forth for the remainder of your life.

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