Eat to beat high blood pressure : natural self-help for hypertension, including 60 recipes

221 Pages·2003·3.94 MB·English

by  Brewer

Eat to Beat High Blood Pressure
Natural Self-help for Hypertension, including 60 recipes
Dr Sarah Brewer and
Michelle Berriedale-Johnson
Contents
Cover
Title Page
Introduction
Part One: The Facts about High Blood Pressure
Chapter 1: What is High Blood Pressure?
Chapter 2: Causes, Diagnosis and Treatment of High Blood Pressure
Part Two: High Blood Pressure and Diet
Chapter 3: Atherosclerosis, Cholesterol and Dietary Fats
Chapter 4: High Blood Pressure and Olive Oil
Chapter 5: High Blood Pressure and Oily Fish
Chapter 6: High Blood Pressure, Folic Acid and Homocysteine
Chapter 7: High Blood Pressure and Salt
Chapter 8: High Blood Pressure, Fruit and Vegetables
Chapter 9: High Blood Pressure and Garlic
Chapter 10: High Blood Pressure and Tea
Chapter 11: High Blood Pressure and Red Wine
Part Three: The Recipes
Chapter 12: Introduction
Chapter 13: Soups and Starters
Chapter 14: Fish
Chapter 15: Meat and Poultry
Chapter 16: Vegetables and Vegetarian Dishes
Chapter 17: Desserts
Chapter 18: Baking
Part Four: Taking it Further
Chapter 19: High Blood Pressure and Food Supplements
Chapter 20: High Blood Pressure and Healthy Weight
Chapter 21: High Blood Pressure and Lifestyle
Useful Addresses
Index
Copyright
About the Publisher
Introduction
Whether or not you develop high blood pressure (hypertension) is influenced by
several factors. These are your genes, the way you eat, and other aspects of your
lifestyle such as the amount of exercise you take, whether or not you smoke, and
the amount of alcohol you drink. Eating to beat high blood pressure is not only
possible, it is one of the mainstays of effective treatment. This book looks at how
various dietary changes can help to reduce a raised blood pressure and lessen
your risk of developing associated complications such as coronary heart disease
and stroke.
Making simple, healthy changes to your lifestyle can also significantly
reduce your chances of contracting coronary heart disease. For instance, if you
stop smoking, your risk of getting heart disease drops by 50–70 per cent within
five years. If you take up regular exercise, your risk falls by 45 per cent. Keeping
your alcohol intake within healthy limits will also have a beneficial effect.
Drinking two or three units a day can reduce your chances of heart disease by as
much as 25–45 per cent, but excessive intakes increase the risk. Losing excess
body weight will bring your chances of heart disease down by 35–55 per cent.
For more on lifestyle changes, see Chapters 20 and 21.
Food supplements are also effective in helping to maintain a healthy
circulation. For more about these, please see Chapter 19.
The delicious recipes provided by Michelle Berriedale-Johnson will make
eating to beat hypertension as pleasant and easy as possible.
P O
ART NE
The Facts about High Blood Pressure
C
HAPTER 1
What is High Blood Pressure?
Everyone needs a certain blood pressure (BP) to keep blood moving around their
body and maintain their circulation. Blood pressure exists because your heart
pumps blood around a closed system, rather like a boiler pumping water through
a series of central heating pipes. The pressure in your arteries therefore depends
on a number of factors, including the volume of fluid inside your circulation,
how hard your heart is pumping at any given time, and the elasticity or
‘resistance’ of the vessels the blood is passing through.
Normal BP varies naturally throughout the day and night, going up and down
in response to your emotions and level of activity. If you have high blood
pressure, however, your BP will remain consistently high, even when you are
asleep.
The heart alternately contracts and relaxes as it pumps to produce the
heartbeat. Each contraction produces a surge in pressure. The highest pressure
reached in the arteries during this surge is known as the systolic pressure as it is
due to contraction (systole) of the heart. As the heart rests between beats, blood
pressure falls again and the lowest blood pressure recorded while the heart rests
(diastole) is known as the diastolic pressure. In general, as the heart pumps more
strongly, systolic pressure rises, while a reduction in elasticity of the peripheral
arteries causes diastolic pressure to go up.
How BP is Measured
Blood pressure (BP) is measured using an instrument called a
sphygmomanometer. This has an inflatable cuff which goes around your upper
arm, a small pump to push air into the cuff and a column of mercury (or a dial)
to record the pressure within the cuff.
As the cuff is inflated with air, the person measuring your BP usually feels
for a pulse (brachial artery) in the crook of your elbow. While the pressure
within your artery stays higher than that in the cuff, blood can be felt pulsing
through. Once the pressure in the cuff becomes greater than that in your artery,
the vessel is squashed flat and blood stops flowing through it at that point. By
inflating the cuff to an initial pressure that is higher than the expected systolic
pressure, then listening with a stethoscope over your brachial artery as the
pressure is slowly released, the point at which blood manages to squirt through
again with each pulse can be heard distinctly as a tapping sound. The pressure
registering in the cuff at this point is taken as your systolic BP. The cuff is then
slowly deflated further while listening over your artery. The tapping sounds
become louder, then change to a dull whooshing noise before disappearing. The
point at which blood can no longer be heard whooshing through the vessel is
taken as your diastolic BP. The pulsing noise heard in the artery between these
two pressures is a result of turbulence as the cuff impinges on the vessel and
deforms its walls. We therefore know that the blood pressure in the artery is the
same as that in the cuff at the point where the sounds disappear, as turbulence is
no longer occurring. BP can also be measured with modern digital cuffs that fit
around the wrist.
BP is measured according to the length of a column of mercury it can support. It
is therefore expressed in millimetres of mercury (mmHg). BP is written down as
the higher pressure (systole) over the lower figure (diastole).
A typical 20-year-old may have a BP of around 120/70 mmHg.
BP naturally tends to rise with age and a fit 50-year-old may have a BP of
around 135/85 mmHg.
The pulse pressure – the difference between the systolic and diastolic pressures –
is normally around 50 mmHg.
If your BP is consistently higher than 140/90, then you are suffering from high
blood pressure, or hypertension.
How Blood Pressure is Controlled
Blood pressure is normally controlled and kept within safe limits by the body in
a number of ways, including:
changing the rate at which the heart pumps
widening or constricting small arteries
altering the amount of blood pooled in the veins
varying the amount of salt and fluids filtered from the circulation via the
kidneys.
These factors are controlled by nerve signals from the brain, and by several
different hormones. As a result, normal BP varies naturally throughout the day,
going up and down in response to your emotions and level of activity. It is
lowest during sleep (usually at around 3am) and highest in the morning from just
before you wake until around 11 am. If you have high blood pressure, however,
your BP will remain high all the time, even at rest.
Hypertension
As many as one in five adults have high blood pressure, known medically as
hypertension. This means that blood is forced through their system under a
constantly high pressure. Hypertension is diagnosed when systolic pressure is
consistently greater than 140 mmHg and diastolic pressure consistently greater
than 90 mmHg. A systolic blood pressure between 140–160 mmHg and diastolic
values between 90–95 mmHg are sometimes referred to as mild hypertension.
In hypertension, the body’s systems for correcting high or low blood
pressure don’t seem to work properly so blood pressure is maintained at an
elevated level compared to normal. Little is known about how or why this
happens, but the condition seems to be readily reversible once diet and lifestyle
changes are introduced, together with any necessary anti-hypertensive drug
treatment.
SYMPTOMS
Unfortunately, people with high blood pressure usually notice very little in the
way of symptoms, although a few may develop a pounding sensation in their
ears or a splitting headache. As a result, hypertension is often referred to as the
silent killer, as it usually creeps up on you without any obvious warning. Even if
your blood pressure is dangerously high, you may feel relatively well. If
symptoms do occur, they tend to be non-specific, such as a headache or getting
up at night to pass urine more often than normal. Your blood pressure has to be
severely raised before you develop dizziness or visual disturbances. It is
therefore a good idea for adults to have their blood pressure checked on a regular
basis, every year or so – especially if high blood pressure runs in their family.
This is because a high blood pressure that remains undiagnosed and untreated
can lead to a number of potentially serious complications.
WHY HIGH BLOOD PRESSURE IS HARMFUL
Hypertension is not a disease in itself, but a clinical sign that you are at increased
risk of a number of serious health problems. As blood is forced through your
system at high pressure, your artery walls receive a pounding. This which can
both over-stretch important blood vessels as well as damage their linings. If left
untreated, this can trigger premature hardening and furring up of the arteries
(atherosclerosis) and increase the risk of a number of health problems. If your
blood pressure remains constantly high, this can lead to:
peripheral vascular disease – when arteries supplying blood to the limbs become
hardened and furred up so circulation is reduced
impotence – when the blood supply to the penis is affected
failing sight – when blood vessels in the eyes are affected
kidney failure – when blood vessels in your kidneys are damaged
heart failure – when your heart finds it difficult to pump blood against the high
pressure in your circulation; this typically causes breathlessness as fluid builds
up in your lungs
angina (heart pain) – when the excess workload on the heart increases its oxygen
and nutrient needs beyond those provided by its blood supply
a heart attack – when the coronary arteries are damaged enough to trigger a
sudden blockage of blood supply to the heart muscle (e.g. due to a blood clot)
a stroke – when blood vessels in the brain are damaged enough to cause a
disruption in blood supply to brain cells, – either due to a sudden blood clot, or
to a haemorrhage.
Research shows that for a man in his 40s:
each rise in systolic blood pressure of 10mmHg increases his risk of heart
disease by 20 per cent
the risk of having a stroke is 30 times higher if he has high blood pressure than
for someone with normal BP.
This all sounds rather frightening, but the good news is that early diagnosis and
treatment can control your blood pressure and keep you healthy. It is vitally
important that your hypertension is well controlled, by taking your tablets
exactly as prescribed. A number of relatively simple dietary and lifestyle
changes can also help to reduce the risk of high blood pressure, lower a BP that