High blood pressure: Lifestyle changes to reduce reading
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High blood pressure is a highly pernicious condition whereby the force of blood coursing through your body is consistently too high. This intensity can put extra strain on your heart, hiking your risk of heart disease. Fortunately, you can obstruct this harmful process by making simple dietary interventions.
Research continues to shed light on the specific dietary items that boast blood pressure-lowering effects.
Coconut water falls into this category, suggests research published in the West Indian Medical Journal.
In the study, the authors investigated the effect of regular consumption of coconut water on the control of hypertension.
Twenty-eight hypertensive subjects were assigned to four equal groups and their systolic and diastolic blood pressures recorded for two weeks before and then for another two weeks while receiving one of four interventions.
Systolic pressure (higher number) is the force at which your heart pumps blood around your body and diastolic pressure (lower number) is the resistance to the blood flow in the blood vessels.
One group (the control) received bottled drinking water, the second group received coconut water, the third received mauby (another tropical fruit drink) and the fourth group, a mixture of coconut water and mauby.
Significant decreases in the mean systolic blood pressure were observed for the groups receiving coconut water.
Other studies attest the blood pressure-lowering benefits of coconut water.
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Research published in the journal Health Science Journal of Indonesia aimed to investigate the effect of coconut water on blood pressure in female teachers and employees with prehypertension.
A total of 32 female prehypertension subjects aged 25-44 years were recruited for the study.
Some doctors refer to slightly elevated blood pressure as prehypertension. Elevated blood pressure will likely turn into high blood pressure.
The treatment group received 300 ml of coconut water twice daily for 14 days and the control group received 300 ml of water twice daily for 14 days.
By the end of the study, the researchers noted that drinking 300 ml of coconut water twice daily for 14 consecutive days had a “tendency to decrease systolic BP”.
General dietary tips
You should cut down on the amount of salt in your food and eat plenty of fruit and vegetables to lower a high reading.
That’s because the more salt you eat, the higher your blood pressure, warns the NHS.
“Aim to eat less than 6g (0.2oz) of salt a day, which is about a teaspoonful,” advises the health body.
It adds: “Eating a low-fat diet that includes lots of fibre, such as wholegrain rice, bread and pasta, and plenty of fruit and vegetables also helps lower blood pressure.”
Exercise is also integral to blood pressure control.
The Mayo Clinic explains: “Regular physical activity makes your heart stronger. A stronger heart can pump more blood with less effort.
“As a result, the force on your arteries decreases, lowering your blood pressure.”
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