According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, about 1 in 3 adults in the United States suffers from high blood pressure. Your blood pressure varies throughout the day, and will be higher when you are stressed or after exercise. Eating a meal often causes blood pressure to fall, but sodium, tobacco and alcohol consumed at the same time can cause it to spike. If you experience a sudden rise in blood pressure after you eat, take a look at what's on your plate and what you're doing around the time you eat.
Diet
Take a look at the meals you are eating when you notice a blood pressure spike. Restaurant foods are typically high in sodium, as are packaged foods such as chips and crackers. Some people are more sensitive to salt than others. Study findings by researchers at Case Western University School of Medicine and Kent State University assert that your body can't quite manage to both control core body temperature and keep blood pressure steady after eating salt. Salt-sensitive people tend to keep a stable body temperature at the expense of blood pressure.
Tobacco
Enjoying a post-meal cigarette, pipe or cigar can also cause your blood pressure to spike after eating. The National Heart Lung and Blood Institute notes that smoking does not cause chronic high blood pressure, but it can cause a short-term spike, which can be dangerous for people with existing hypertension. Smoking also speeds up the hardening of arteries and contributes to artery wall damage.
Alcohol
If your dinner typically involves three or four glasses of wine, you can expect to see your blood pressure rise. Try to limit your alcohol to a single glass of wine or beer per day for women, or two a day for men. In addition to boosting blood pressure, alcohol also contains empty calories, which can contribute to a weight problem -- and excess weight is another risk factor for hypertension.
Drugs
Monoamine oxidase inhibitors, or MAOIs, are frequently prescribed medications for treating depression. These drugs generally lower blood pressure, but they also react very easily with other drugs and with compounds in the foods you eat, like tyramine, an amino acid in aged cheese, beer, wine and chocolate. According to MacAlester College's Behavioral Neuroscience Resource Project, eating these foods while you have MAOIs in your system can lead to a buildup of tyramine in your blood. Excess tyramine can cause blood pressure to spike.
Recommendations
If you are under a physician's care for high blood pressure and you regularly see spikes in blood pressure after you eat, evaluate the food and lifestyle choices you are making. If you are currently taking any medications with MAOIs, ask your doctor about possible food and drug interactions.
