What food/supplement can help lower BP? - High & Low Blood Pressure Message Board

Kato1421 · 01-30-2004, 11:46 AM

Other than BP medications, like to hear from the board members what food/supplements they might had tried to help their BP. It appears there are a lot of things that may help lower BP and I like to start to try some. I like to hear some real life experience before I blindly start on my own.

I am currently taking Norvasc 10mg and Clonidine 0.2mg for control BP. I think my diet is already "fairly healthy". My goal is to reduce my BP with help of the right type of food/supplement and reduce drug dosage.

Any advise will be appreicated.

zuzu8 · 01-30-2004, 12:58 PM

Have you heard about the DASH diet?

A major study, published for the first time in the New England Journal of medicine a few years ago on high blood pressure showed for the first time that simply eating more fruits, vegetables and low-fat dairy foods can signficantly lower a person's blood pressure even WITHOUT weight loss or salt restriction. And the higher the person's blood pressure, the better the dietary regimen worked.

According to the study, DASH worked quickly, within two weeks, and it worked in everyone who tried it regardless of their initial blood pressure: men and women, blacks and whites, young and old, thin and overweight.

The findings suggest that the diet could replace medication in people with mild hypertension, and for people on the verge of developing high blood pressure, the diet could prevent them from crossing the line, according to Dr. Laura Svetkey, who led the Duke University portion of the multi-center study.

The study was funded by the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute (NHLBI) and was jointly conducted by Duke, Johns Hopkins University, Brigham and Women's Hospital, Pennington Biomedical Research Center, and Kaiser Permanente Center for Health Research.

This diet is quite novel because it doesn't require the same degree of deprivation as do current dietary treatments. Instead, you are actually ADDING healthier foods, which may be easier to maintain on a long-term basis.
Also, more good news.... the diet is consistent with all other national recommendations for preventing cancer, heart disease and other chronic diseases.

The diet included four to five daily servings of fruits and four to five daily servings of vegetables, about twice the average American consumption of fruits and vegetables. It also included three daily servings of low-fat dairy foods. Despite the fact that the DASH diet is a reduced fat diet, participants also ate peanuts, cookies, meats and other high-calorie foods in moderation. All foods were bought off the grocery store shelf and required no special preparation. The participants were NOT ALLOWED TO LOSE WEIGHT OR RESTRICT SALT believe it or not, so that researchers could study the effects of the diet independent of all other factors.

The 459 participants in the multi-center study ate one of three diets for approximately 11 weeks: either the DASH diet; a typical American diet high in fat but low in fruits and vegetables; or a typical American diet with added fruits and vegetables.

Check it all out here:

[url]http://216.239.57.104/search?q=cache:7LNeEv1s7N8J:www.nhlbi.ni h.gov/health/public/heart/hbp/dash/+%22dash+diet%22&hl=en&ie=UTF-8[/url]

zuzu xx

Kato1421 · 01-30-2004, 05:46 PM

Zuzu,

I know about the DASH diet and my diet do include many vage and fruits. What I after was is there any one or more vage or fruits that someone on this board had tried and found helpful to lower BP.

For example. I read that eating 4 stalk of celery daily would help lower BP. Has anyone try that?

zip2play · 01-30-2004, 06:31 PM

zuzu,

The core of the DASH plan is severe sodium restriction and weight loss by calorie restriction...why they mention the 3100 calorie diet as opposed to a 1600 calorie diet, only the lord knows.

Quote:

The participants were NOT ALLOWED TO LOSE WEIGHT OR RESTRICT SALT believe it or not, so that researchers could study the effects of the diet independent of all other factors.

That statement has me confused...the diet is ALL salt restriction wherefores and howto's!
I really don't think anyone would decribe it as a "fruit diet" but rather a "calorie and salt restrictive diet."
Believe me, a diet consisting of 2 items only: fruit and salt encrusted Amish pretzels would have most people's BP off the wall...even with 20 servings of fruit.

The earliest of the salt restrictive diets devised before even the thiazides existed was the RICE DIET...basically all the white rice you could eat plain...with a teeny amount of fruit and vegetables. It worked beautifully...at least till the dieters all committed suicide (I guess with enough rice;
Hara Kiri

)

zuzu8 · 01-30-2004, 07:55 PM

Zip- Mea culpa. I should have read my dates! I made a mistake by giving the earliest lowdown from the very FIRST studies published. In my eagerness, I failed to see, in the Duke Univ. newsletter I was reading, the following: ( I am putting it in quotes but paraphrasing so as not to use copyrighted material as per board guidelines):

"The next research phase will be testing the DASH diet together with salt restriction to evaluate whether this can lower blood pressure even more dramatically"....

Apparently the original study indeed was with NO SALT RESTRICTION. Simply low in saturated fat, cholesterol, and total fat, emphasizing fruits, veggies, and low-fat dairy, but including whole grains, fish, poultry and nuts. It involved reduction of red meat, and sweets/sugar.

They have now of course concluded that sodium restriction is essential and now there are, I believe, two DASH diets one can use. One with sodium restricted to 2400mg daily and one @1500mg.

zuzu xx