High blood pressure, or hypertension, is a lifestyle-induced condition that places you at higher risk of heart attack and stroke. Maintaining a blood pressure at or below 120/80 mmHg significantly reduces your risk of disease. There are at least two dietary programs that have been thoroughly studied for their effectiveness in reducing both diastolic and systolic blood pressure -- DASH, or Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension, and vegetarianism. Both of these plans have shown blood pressure improvements in patients with hypertension beginning in as little as two weeks.
Saturated Fat and Cholesterol
The DASH plan focuses on reducing your intake of saturated fat, cholesterol and sodium while increasing your consumption of fruits, vegetables and low-fat dairy products. It is likely that the success of the vegetarian diet in lowering blood pressure is due to these same factors. Saturated fat and cholesterol contribute to high blood pressure by hardening and constricting your arteries, making blood flow more difficult. Both saturated fat and cholesterol are found primarily in animal products -- in fact, cholesterol is found exclusively in animal products -- so reducing the amount of animal products you consume by eliminating meat will naturally reduce the amount of saturated fat and cholesterol you consume.
Fruits and Vegetables
The simple elimination of meat from your diet will not inherently lead to a healthier, blood pressure reducing diet. It is possible to be vegetarian and subsist entirely on a diet of cheese pizza and ice cream, which you can probably guess would be bad for your waistline, heart and blood pressure even though it would be vegetarian. For the best results in lowering your blood pressure, it is important to replace the fat- and sodium-laden foods in your diet with fruits and vegetables -- and use fresh produce whenever possible. Produce is loaded with fiber, vitamins and minerals that contribute to reversing hypertension. The best results come from a diet with at least four to five servings each of fruits and vegetables every day and increasing benefits have been seen with up to 10 servings of vegetables a day. As an added bonus, increasing the amount of fresh produce in your diet reduces your risk of type 2 diabetes and nearly every kind of cancer.
Low-fat Dairy
Both the lacto-ovo vegetarian diet and vegan diet reduce hypertension, and the success of the DASH plan is partially attributed to its inclusion of two to three servings of low-fat dairy products each day. A 2002 article in "Public Health Nutrition" that compared the blood pressure of meat eaters, fish eaters, vegetarians and vegans found that vegans actually had the lowest blood pressure, followed closely by vegetarians. Although this seems to provide support for the idea that dairy is not a necessary part of your anti-hypertension diet since vegans do not eat any animal products -- including dairy -- if you do decide to include dairy products, they should be low-fat dairy products.
The Plan
Each day your diet should center around the inclusion of four to five servings of fruit and four to 10 servings of vegetables. A serving of fruit is ½ cup of fresh, frozen or canned fruit or ½ cup of fruit juice and a serving of vegetables is 1 cup of raw vegetables or ½ cup of cooked vegetables or vegetable juice. If you choose to add dairy to your diet, add two servings of low-fat milk or cheese. One cup of milk or 1½ oz. of cheese makes a serving of dairy. Your diet should also include four to six servings of grains -- mostly from whole grains. One slice of whole wheat bread or ½ cup of oatmeal, brown rice or whole wheat pasta equals one serving of grain. Beans and legumes are rich in fiber, B vitamins and minerals, so add ½ cup of cooked beans almost every day. Limit fats and oils to three servings or fewer per day. A serving of fat is 1 tsp. of margarine or oil, 1 tbsp. of light mayonnaise or 2 tbsp. of light salad dressing. Limit sweets and added sugars to one serving or fewer per day. A serving of sugar is ½ cup of sorbet or gelatin or 1 tbsp. of jam or jelly. Your sodium intake is likely to be lower because you are replacing meats and processed foods with fruits and vegetables, but make sure that you are limiting your sodium intake to at least 2,300 mg per day and preferably 1,500 mg per day. The DASH program found that people lowered their blood pressure when they restricted their sodium intake to 2,300 mg per day and were even more successful at lowering blood pressure with 1,500 mg per day.
Total Calories
The specific number of servings that you eat of fruits, vegetables, dairy and grains is determined by the overall number of calories appropriate for you. Since maintaining a healthy weight is an important part of controlling your blood pressure as well as reducing your risk of heart disease, diabetes and cancer, choose a diet that provides you with ample nutrition to maintain your metabolism but not enough calories to promote weight gain. A quick rule of thumb used by dietitians is 10 calories per pound of body weight per day for weight loss and 12 to 15 calories per pound per day for weight maintenance. That means that a 180-pound person would follow an 1,800 calorie plan for weight loss or 2,100 to 2,700 calorie plan for weight maintenance. For an exact measurement based on your own metabolism, you can make an appointment with a dietitian for an indirect calorimetry test, which measures the volume of air you move in and out of your lungs to calculate your resting metabolism.
References
- "Hypertension"; DASH (Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension) Diet Is Effective Treatment for Stage 1 Isolated Systolic Hypertension; Thomas J. Moore, et al.; 2001
- "New England Journal of Medicine"; A Clinical Trial of the Effects of Dietary Patterns on Blood Pressure; L.J. Appel, et al.; April 1997
- "Public Health Nutrition"; Hypertension and Blood Pressure Among Meat Eaters, Fish Eaters, Vegetarians and Vegans in EPIC-Oxford; Paul Appleby, et al.; January 2002
- "British Journal of Nutrition"; A Vegan Regimen With Reduced Medication in the Treatment of Hypertension; Olov Lindahl, et al.; January 1984
- "British Medical Journal"; Vegetarian Diet in Mild Hypertension: A Randomised Controlled Trial; B. M. Margetts, et al.; December 1986
- "The Lancet"; Blood Pressure Lowering Effect of a Vegetarian Diet: Controlled Trial in Normotensive Subjects; Ian L. Rouse, et al.; January 1983
