Hypertension simply means high blood pressure. It is often called the “silent killer” for lack of symptoms and may go unnoticed for years. It is but important to have your blood pressure checked regularly. Hypertension cannot be cured. While prescriptions to treat hypertension are available, research has shown that modest lifestyle and dietetic changes are of great help to treat and often delay or prevent high blood pressure.

As a general rule, people trying to control hypertension often are advised to decrease sodium, increase potassium, watch their calories, and maintain a reasonable weight.

In a nutshell, a hypertensive person should:

• Further decrease salt in the usual foods. Table salt is 40 percent sodium. One teaspoon has about 2,000 mg sodium. Offhand, chloride, not sodium, has been found to be a key factor in raising blood pressure. Salt is a combination of sodium and chloride.
• Avoid high sodium foods like processed foods containing Mono Sodium Glutamate.  E.g. pickles, pappads, chips, fried items. Dietary recommendations for daily sodium intake is 1,500 to 2,300 mg a day.
• Never put on excessive weight. Calories and body weight go hand in hand. Excess body fat leads to an increased risk of health problems. For people who are overweight, even a small weight loss can dramatically reduce or even prevent high blood pressure.  
• Exercise mildly but regularly.  
• Low calcium intake may increase risk of hypertension. Everyone should meet the Dietary Reference Intake (DRI) for calcium every day. For adults, this is 1,000 mg per day. For adults over 50 year old, 1,200 mg is recommended.
• Eat plenty of fruits and vegetables.
• Minerals such as potassium and magnesium have an important role in blood pressure treatment.

Untreated hypertension causes damage to the blood vessels over time. This can lead to other health complications such as strokes, kidney failure, impaired vision, heart attack, and heart failure.

Vegetarian Diet

Research has shown that a vegetarian diet (i.e., no meat, poultry or fish) maintains normal blood pressure. Both systolic and diastolic drastically fell when on vegetarian diet and these rise again when they resumed to a meat-eating diet.

A related study suggests that a vegan diet (ie. no animal produce - meat, poultry, eggs, dairy or fish) can also be helpful even to those who have been suffering with hypertension for years. A group suffering with long-term hypertension adopted a vegan diet about a year. Most participants said their blood pressure had gone down and they felt better, with most having stopped or reduced medication.

The DASH Diet

A milestone study called DASH (Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension) Similar to the low-fat version of the Food Pyramid, the DASH diet is rich in fruits, vegetables, complex carbohydrates and low-fat dairy products. The DASH diet is lower in fat, saturated fat, cholesterol, and sodium, and higher in potassium, magnesium, and calcium than the typical American diet. The DASH diet is an overall eating plan that focuses on what people should eat, rather than what not to eat. It is recommended by the American Heart Association and the National Cancer Institute,

Magnesium

Magnesium has direct link with hypertension. It has been found that 50% of magnesium deficient patients have high blood pressure. Upon correction of the deficiency, it normalizes blood pressure. Magnesium laden food includes: green vegetables, whole grains, nuts and yeast extracts.

Potassium

Potassium works with sodium to regulate the body’s water balance. However, the evidence does not suggest that people with high blood pressure should take potassium supplements. Instead, potassium rich foods should be eaten everyday.

Salt   

People consuming much salt are at risk of stroke and cardiovascular disease. The salt intake of over 10,000 people in 32 countries   found out that a difference of only 6 grams   per day was found to yield in a difference of systolic reading of 10mm Hg and diastolic blood pressure of 5mm Hg for a 55 year old. These figures suggest that an extra 6 grams of salt consumed daily can increase in the risk of heart disease by 21 percent and stroke by 34 percent.

Water  & Hypertension

Several studies have been published on sodium in drinking water and its effect on blood pressure. The American Heart Association and the WHO recommend limiting the sodium in drinking water to 20 mg/L. In the US, 40% of   drinking water exceeds 20 mg/L of sodium. Many people would have to purchase either low sodium bottled water or de mineralize their own drinking water through reverse osmosis, distillation or de-ionization. If we adopt these procedures, we would create soft water, a kind of water low in hardness and low in TDS. The effect of this is to create an unhealthy drinking water.

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