Mayo Clinic 5 Steps to Controlling High Blood Pressure

Your Personal Guide to Preventing and Managing Hypertension

Sheldon G. Sheps

• Publisher: Mayo Clinic Press
• Year: 2020
• eBook ISBN: 9780795347788
• Topic: Medicine
• Subtopic: Diseases & Allergies

How to play a vital role in your own health and longevity: A handbook from " one of the most reliable, respected health resources that Americans have" ( Publishers Weekly).
 
This easy-to-use guide will help you understand the many issues related to high blood pressure and assist you in preventing it, managing it, and making essential treatment decisions.
 
· Learn which single factor you can do the most about when it comes to influencing your blood pressure. This one step may be all it takes to lower your blood pressure and keep it under control.
· How losing as little as 10 pounds may reduce your blood pressure to a healthier level—includes practical help for maintaining a healthier weight.
· Discover a great alternative that may lower your blood pressure just about as much as medications—without the expense of prescriptions.
· Why your blood pressure goes down if you make your heart stronger—and dozens of tips to realize this goal.
· How to manage your sodium intake.
· Information about medications for when changes in lifestyle aren't enough and more

Part 1

5 key steps

Chapter 1

Eat better (and enjoy it!)

Of all the factors that influence blood pressure, your diet may be one that you can do the most about. You can’t change your genes and you can’t stop aging, but you can certainly decide what food to put on your plate.

By choosing healthier foods, you can lower your blood pressure and keep it under better control. Even modest changes can make a significant difference. A healthy diet, along with physical activity and other lifestyle changes, can lessen the chance that you’ll need medication to treat high blood pressure. Or it may mean you’ll take fewer medications or at a lower dose.

As the assessment below suggests, the benefits of a healthy diet extend beyond blood pressure. A healthy diet reduces your risk of stroke, heart attack, heart failure and kidney failure. Eating well can also help you lose weight or avoid gaining weight, important factors in managing your blood pressure.

Eating smart to manage high blood pressure involves more than just cutting down on your salt intake. For decades, public health officials told people with high blood pressure to limit sodium in their diets. This advice still holds, but it turns out that salt is just one part of the story. Recent studies have shown that other aspects of your diet can affect blood pressure. A comprehensive approach to food makes more sense than focusing solely on salt.

And eating smart doesn’t mean counting calories and giving up the foods you like. You can enjoy a variety of foods that keep you healthy in the years ahead. Read on to learn more about what to eat more of, what to eat less of and how to incorporate good eating behaviors into your daily life.

• • • • •

Are your weight and eating habits healthy?

1. How do you score on the BMI chart?

➊ Obese

➋ Underweight or overweight

➌ Healthy

2. What’s your waist measurement?

➊ Considerably more than the recommended measurement

➋ Slightly above the recommended measurement

➌ At or below the recommended measurement

3. Do you have a health condition that would improve if you lost weight?

➊ Yes

➋ Possibly

➌ No

4. Do you eat for emotional reasons, such as when you feel anxious, depressed, stressed, angry or excited?

➊ Always or quite often

➋ Sometimes

➌ Never or infrequently

5. Do you sit down and eat three regularly scheduled meals?

➊ Never or infrequently

➋ Sometimes

➌ Always or most of the time

6. How long does it generally take you to eat a meal?

➊ Five minutes or less

➋ Between five and 20 minutes

➌ 20 minutes or more

7. Do you snack a lot or substitute snacks for meals?

➊ Yes or quite often

➋ Occasionally

➌ No or infrequently

» How did you score?

To the left of the answer you chose is a point value — 1, 2 or 3 points. Add upthe points from your answers for your total score.

A: If your total score was 18 to 21 points, congratulations! Your weight and your eating habits appear to be healthy.

B: If your score was 13 to 17 points, you’re on track, but you may consider losing a few pounds and improving some of your eating habits.

C: If your score was 7 to 12 points, work toward making a healthy weight and better eating habits your priorities.

• • • • •

Healthy-eating basics

Over the years, many studies have demonstrated the benefits of eating healthy. But exactly what is meant by a “healthy diet?” A healthy diet is more than just calorie counting. Quite simply, a healthy diet is plant based (rich in vegetables and fruits) and also includes whole grains, beans, nuts, fish, lean sources of protein, and low-fat or fat-free dairy products. By emphasizing these foods, such a diet provides plentiful amounts of nutrients and fiber while limiting unhealthy fats (saturated fat and trans fat) and cholesterol. This type of approach also limits calories when weight loss is a goal.

One such approach is the DASH diet. Known officially as Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension (DASH), it provides a lifelong approach to healthy eating. The DASH diet stems from several key studies that compared various eating plans.

In the first study, people with or at risk of high blood pressure followed one of three diets — a “typical” American diet, the DASH diet, or a diet that promoted fruits and vegetables but didn’t limit dairy products or fat. Participants who ate the DASH diet were able to reduce their blood pressure significantly — and within two weeks. African-American participants and those with high blood pressure experienced the most dramatic drops. The DASH diet also lowered levels of low-density lipoprotein (LDL, or “bad”) cholesterol.

The initial DASH diet included about 3,000 milligrams (mg) daily of sodium — less than what most Americans consume on a daily basis. A follow-up study, called DASH-Sodium study, found that consuming less salt lowered blood pressure even more. Participants who consumed no more than 1,500 mg of sodium a day experienced the greatest reductions in blood pressure.

A recent study found that people with prehypertension and stage 1 hypertension who combined the DASH diet with comprehensive lifestyle changes that included weight loss, physical activity, and reduced sodium and alcohol intake were able to achieve better blood pressure control.

In the OmniHeart Trial, researchers modified the DASH diet by replacing some carbohydrates with either more protein or more unsaturated fat. Both diets lowered blood pressure further and also improved triglyceride and cholesterol levels, possibly reducing the risk of coronary artery disease.

• • • • •

A lower carb approach

The OmniHeart Trial showed that replacing some carbohydrates with either protein or monounsaturated fat lowers blood pressure even more than in the regular DASH diet (see below for more information on DASH). But increased protein intake doesn’t translate into just eating more. About two-thirds of the added protein in the study came from plant sources, including legumes, grains, nuts and seeds. The diet higher in monounsaturated fat included more olive, canola and safflower oils, as well as nuts and seeds.

If you’re interested in a lower carb approach, don’t forget to pay attention to overall calories. Fats have more calories a serving than carbohydrates and proteins do. If you substitute fats for carbohydrates, make sure to adjust daily servings to meet your calorie goal.

• • • • •

Other dietary options

Other eating plans share a similar premise as the DASH diet. One such plan is the Mayo Clinic Healthy Weight Pyramid (below), which is designed to help you achieve and maintain a healthy weight. The pyramid is similar to the DASH diet in that it promotes eating more whole grains, fruits and vegetables and recommends eating fewer animal products, including meat, poultry and fish. The DASH plan differs in that it separates vegetable proteins from animal proteins — the DASH plan recommends getting four to five servings a week of nuts, seeds and legumes (vegetable protein sources).

Mayo Clinic Healthy Weight Pyramid The DASH diet is similar in many respects to the Mayo Clinic Healthy Weight Pyramid — the princ...

Table of contents

• Title Page
• Copyright
• Preface
• Table of contents
• Introduction A plan for life
• Part 1 5 key steps
• Part 2 Understanding high blood pressure
• Glossary
• Additional resources