Hypertension guide

Coming from someone who has had to deal with high blood pressure over the last few years, I was up for anything that would help lower it. Taking pills on a day to day basis helps, but do I really want to have to take pills the rest of my life? No. So I went on a search for foods and ways to naturally lower my blood pressure and take care of it for good. Here is news on whether or not chocolate can help lower your high blood pressure.

Early indicators and studies over the last few years confirm that chocolate, particularly dark chocolate, can help people with hypertension and high blood pressure. For some, it can help significantly.

Now when I read this, I was ecstatic and jumping for joy - chocolate had always been one of my favorite food groups! However, my skeptical side needed more information to really believe that dark chocolate would help me. So, out I went to research - books, online sources, and doctors. To save you time and effort, here is what I found out.

One compound of dark chocolate is called flavanols or flavan-3-ols. Without boring you with too much detail, flavanols cause vasodilation of blood vessels, or the widening of the blood vessels. With wider blood vessels, this allows for easier and increased flow of blood, resulting in lower blood pressure. These flavanols help relax the smooth muscle surrounding the blood vessels, removing the stimulus for contraction.

Is that not great news? Eat dark chocolate, which in turns eases blood flow, and helps lower high blood pressure. But, and there is always a but, scientists do not all agree with the findings.

It turns out that consumption of dark chocolate can benefit those already with high blood pressure, and has little effect on people with normal levels. Also, over-eating of dark chocolate to reap its benefits is the wrong thinking too. Considering the high levels of sugar and calories in dark chocolate (about 500 calories per 100 grams), they recommend watching just how much you eat. If you eat too much in an attempt to lower high blood pressure, you end up with weight gain and a whole different set of issues.

Many of the dark chocolate products you see in the stores have a lot of processed ingredients, and are just not as useful as you might think. To get the most out of the effects of dark chocolate, choose plain bars and look for those that contain at least 70% cocoa. I have included some examples on my web site for you to consider.

So in the end, as skeptical as I am, I came to believe I can trust in the power of dark chocolate. As with anything else in your life and health, always think about the "M" word: moderation. A healthy and balanced diet with regular exercise is essential and nothing out there on its own is a magical cure.

Taking care of high blood pressure should not mean popping pills the rest of your life, unless that is what you want. Instead, there are an abundance of natural products out there providing you with the same results. For additional products and ideas about how to lower your high blood pressure, take a moment and visit my site, http://remedieshighbloodpressure.com/. While I do not have all the answers, I might have just what you need that makes a difference between life and death.

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Hypertension has many causes. The most common of which are associated with our "Western" diet and increasingly sedentary lifestyles. Those of us with high blood pressure are exhorted to adopt a healthy balanced diet to help manage our condition. However, little or no explanation of this entreaty is given. Instead, medication that undermines some aspects of a healthy diet is prescribed.

Our bodies are complex organisms that require a certain balance of nutrients for optimum performance. Hypertension can result from an imbalance of nutrients. Ironically, the medication prescribed to lower our high blood pressure can strip out some of these essential nutrients and indirectly compound the condition it was meant to manage!

Diet and hypertension:

Our modern "Western" diet is often low in fresh fruits, nuts and vegetables. These are the main sources of the nutrients we need to maintain our blood pressures at healthy levels. Whilst our diet often has an over-supply of sodium, more often than not, there is a deficiency of potassium. That deficiency is a common cause of hypertension.

The recommended daily amount of potassium for an adult is 4,700mg. Most people's diet gives them less than half of this amount. Bananas are a good source of potassium, with a medium size banana providing about 10 % of our daily requirement for that mineral. Bananas are especially beneficial because they contain almost no sodium.

Potassium and hypertension:

Potassium plays a role in regulating blood pressure. A 1997 study carried out at John Hopkins University in the USA, and which focussed on the role of potassium, suggested people would have to eat five bananas a day to have half the effect of anti-hypertensive medication. With the knowledge we now have, the finding is not unexpected given that:

there is an inverse relationship between our B P and the amount of potassium we consume; andfive bananas only provides half of the RDA for potassium for an adult.

Research conducted by scientists at Kasturba Medical College in Manipal in southern India, after the John Hopkins University study, found that BP readings fell by 10% in people who ate two bananas daily for a week. This is as effective as some anti-hypertensive medication, but without the side effects.

How eating 2 bananas a day reduces hypertension:

This is achieved in two ways:

As has been noted above, bananas area rich source of potassium and have almost no sodium. Eating two bananas a day boosts our potassium intake, which helps regulate our BP levels; andBananas contain natural angiotensin converting enzyme (ACE) inhibitors. ACE produces a substance called angiotensin-2 that constricts blood vessels and raises the pressure inside them. Eating bananas has been shown to stop this happening.

Bananas have many health benefits. Including two bananas a day in our diet is a healthy way to reduce our hypertension naturally.

Robert Reddin suffers from high blood pressure. He lowered his blood pressure to normal levels using natural methods. Click here if you want to lower your blood pressure naturally. http://how-to-lower-your-blood-pressure.com/

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