How To Reduce High Blood Pressure

You've been to the doctor dozens of times and sat through the inflatable arm cuff test for high blood pressure. The nurse rattles off some numbers, but what do they mean? The magic "good news" number is 115/75, but not all of us are so blessed. As we age, our artery walls are bound to be a little narrower and the heart may have to work slightly harder. We work long hours, we get stressed out and we may not have enough time to eat properly or exercise as much. We may be drinkers and smokers, or we may have put on a few pounds over the years. Regardless of how our lifestyle has changed, we can always turn things around before it's too late!

Over at the Harvard School of Medicine, researchers have developed a dietary program known as "DASH," an acronym for Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension. The DASH diet includes: 8 grain servings, 5 vegetable servings, 2-3 low fat dairy servings, 1-2 servings of meat, poultry or fish and 5 servings per week of nuts, seeds or beans.

Saturated fats and sugars should be limited and serving sizes generally run 1/2 cup cooked, 1 cup raw or 2 tbsp nuts and seeds. Exercise is crucial! Within just two weeks, the diet already began having an effect on Dr. Gabe Mirkin's patients, with 70% returning to normal blood pressure levels. He says that increasing minerals like magnesium, calcium and potassium had a strong impact, as did limiting fat and sodium. The diet triggers a diuretic effect, much like certain medications that work to "flush the system."

If you have a particularly heavy strain on your system or suffer more severe metabolic failure, then your doctor may recommend medication to help jumpstart quick progress. "I have people who come to my clinic with a headache caused by high blood pressure. I give them the medicine to bring the blood pressure down and a prescription," explains Dr. Brian F. Keaton, chairman of the board of directors at ACEP in Ohio.

"Many of them don't have the money to fill it. I have no place in the system to care for them until they end up back here with a stroke because they weren't taking their medication." Unfortunately, the current health care system is an obstacle for many hard working Americans, but paying a little for medication in the short term saves a lot of emergency medical bills in the long run.

If you have high blood pressure and you're at a high risk for having a stroke, then be aware that small exercise is probably better for you. A 2000 study found that men who took a one-hour brisk walk five days/week cut their stroke risk in half. Intense workouts should be avoided for high risk individuals, particularly those who may have had congestive heart failure or some sort of medical emergency in the past. These activities include: shoveling snow, heavy lifting, heavy gardening, jogging, tennis and even speed walking. Roughly 40% of young men who die suddenly during a workout have previously experienced, and ignored, symptoms of poor heart health like chest pains, irregular heart beats and undue shortness of breath.

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