High Blood Pressure – Can Lifestyle Changes Really Control High Blood Pressure?

admin — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 02:43:58 +0000

Whenever you are first diagnosed with high blood pressure or you see various television stories talking about blood pressure, it seems they always speak of changing your lifestyle in order to better control the disease. But exactly what lifestyle changes will help? Do these changes actually make a big difference? As you might suspect, lifestyle changes can most definitely help in reducing high blood pressure levels. Let’s take a look at some of the most helpful changes you can put into action.

Diet

Undoubtedly, changing your dietary habits will have one of the biggest effects on improving blood pressure levels.

- Eat more whole grains and cut down on white flour products.

- Eliminate saturated fats and use virgin olive oil. This tip alone has shown a reduced need for hypertension medications in a past study.

- Include more fresh fruits and vegetable in your diet. Foods like bananas, oranges, melons, carrots, celery, mushrooms, broccoli and others may help in lowering high blood pressure.

- Add more oily fish such as salmon into your diet. The omega-3 fatty acids that are contained in fish are very beneficial to good heart and cardiovascular health.

Salt

Reducing salt intake is another proven lifestyle change that lowers blood pressure. Did you know that we should consume less than one teaspoonful of salt each day? That is approximately 2,400 mg.

Many people will use a salt substitute at home and that’s a great idea. The problem though is in the bigger picture. Roughly 75% of the salt intake in your typical American diet comes from foods eaten outside of the home, typically fast foods and processed foods. If you have doubts about this you can simply look at the sodium levels on the package labels. I’m not picking on McDonald’s, but you have enough sodium in one quarter-pounder to last the entire day. And that’s not even counting the salty fries!

Exercise

This is a lifestyle change that can also go a long way in reducing high blood pressure levels. It’s also one that is the most difficult changes to start.

There have even been studies that have shown moderate exercise to control hypertension to the point where high blood pressure medicines were no longer needed.

Smoking, Alcohol and Caffeine

By now I am sure everyone knows you should not smoke. Cigarette smoking and good health just don’t mix. Reducing alcohol and caffeine consumption will also lower blood pressure levels as well as provide other health benefits for years to come.

Weight Loss

With nearly one-third of American adults being overweight or obese, it’s easy to see why high blood pressure is at record levels. Several studies have proven that by losing weight and reducing sodium intake many people with hypertension have been able to reduce or eliminate blood pressure medications.

These are only some of the major lifestyle changes that can help reduce high blood pressure. There are several others as well, but the important point is to asses where you currently are and begin making change in the areas you need to. By doing so you begin getting high blood pressure under control.

High Blood Pressure – A New Approach To Treatment

admin — Fri, 14 Aug 2009 20:22:23 +0000

High blood pressure causes major health problems for many people around the world and work goes on all the time to improve the monitoring and control of blood pressure in patients who have the condition. A new study has shown that pharmacists may be very good at keeping an eye on the BP levels in groups of selected patients. A new bit of internet software and a secure Web interface helped control BP in a group of about three thousand American patients.
Those with high BP are at risk of stroke or heart attack if the problem is not brought under better control. Both stroke and heart attack can lead to either early death or a severe deterioration in the quality of life. Smoking, diabetes and a high cholesterol level are also commonly found in those people with high BP and the combination of these factors is extremely dangerous if not dealt with properly.
Many people with hypertension / high BP need to take medication on a daily basis. Sometimes just one tablet a day is enough but in many cases it needs a combination of BP tablets and some medication to lower the cholesterol level too. All of this can result in side effects due to the interactions of the BP drugs with each other and with any other medication that the patient is taking. Almost all of those who take regular blood pressure medications will experience drug related side effects of one sort or another. Common side effects are fatigue, cough and – in men – problems with a loss of sex drive and a loss of sexual arousal due to the BP meds.
Hypertension (the other name for high blood pressure) is often poorly controlled and BP levels often run high even in those who are on medication every day. Research done previously has shown benefit by adding input from a nurse or pharmacist into the patients care pathway.
The research used a home BP monitor with the results supervised by a pharmacist – the patients fed their results into a secure web based form and the pharmacist reviewed the readings and worked closely with each patient. The group studied were all adults between 25 and 75 – all had poorly controlled hypertension but were otherwise well.
The patients were divided randomly into three groups: group one had their usual care; group two had home BP monitoring and secure patient Web services training only but no pharmacist input and group three had the full package of home BP monitoring and Web training plus pharmacist care management delivered through Web communications.
The results showed that there was no real difference in BP readings in the two groups who did not have a pharmacist looking after them – both groups saw no real change in their BP control. But the group with the pharmacy input saw much better results. Fifty percent of the patients developed readings that were normal when they had previously been high all the time.
It looks like Web-based pharmacy care of people with hypertension is feasible and can improve BP control and I suspect we may see a lot more of this kind of thing in the future.

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High Blood Pressure – Can Lifestyle Changes Really Control High Blood Pressure?

High Blood Pressure – A New Approach To Treatment