Beneficial Vegetables and Spices for Hypertension
A number of common vegetables and spices have beneficial effects in controlling hypertension. Incorporate these into your cooking. Alternately, you can make a tea or a vegetable soup.
Celery (Apium graveolens)
Oriental Medicine practitioners have long used celery for lowering high blood pressure. There are some experimental evidence that shows that celery is useful for this. In one animal study, laboratory animals injected with celery extract showed lowered blood pressure. Eating as few as four celery stalks was found to be beneficial in lowering blood pressure in human beings.
Garlic (Allium sativum)
Garlic is a wonder drug for heart. It has beneficial effects in all cardiovascular system including blood pressure. In a study, when people with high blood pressure were given one clove of garlic a day for 12 weeks, their diastolic blood pressure and cholesterol levels were significantly reduced. Eating quantities as small as one clove of garlic a day was found to have beneficial effects on managing hypertension. Use garlic in your cooking, salad, soup, pickles, etc. It is very versatile.
Onion (Allium cepa)
Onions are useful in hypertension. What is best is the onion essential oil. Two to three tablespoons of onion essential oil a day was found to lower the systolic levels by an average of 25 points and the diastolic levels by 15 points in hypertension subjects. This should not be surprising because onion is a cousin of garlic.
Tomato (Lycopersicon lycopersicum)
Tomatoes are high in gamma-amino butyric acid (GABA), a compound that can help bring down blood pressure.
Broccoli (Brassica oleracea)
This vegetable contains several active ingredients that reduce blood pressure.
Carrot (Daucus carota)
Carrots also contain several compounds that lower blood pressure.
Saffron (Crocus sativus)
Saffron contains a chemical called crocetin that lowers the blood pressure. You can use saffron in your cooking. (It is a very popular spice in Arabic cooking.) You can also make a tea with it. Many Indians add a pinch of saffron in the brewed tea to give a heavenly flavor. Unfortunately, it is very expensive.
Assorted spices
Spices such as fennel, oregano, black pepper, basil and tarragon have active ingredients that is beneficial in hypertension. Use them in your cooking.
Vitamin / Nutrition Therapy
Use a basic vitamin/mineral formula and supplement it with several nutritional supplements that are proven useful for hypertension.
Potassium
Potassium helps to prevent and control blood pressure. Be sure to get enough potassium in the foods you eat. Some good sources are various fruits, vegetables, dairy foods, and fish.
Foods High in Potassium
Apricots,Lean meat , Prunes and prune juice , Bananas, Lean veal, Pumpkin, Catfish Lima beans, Spinach,Cod, Milk, Stewed tomatoes, Dry peas and beans, Orange juice, Sweet potatoes, Flounder, Peaches, Trout, Green beans, Plantain, Winter squash, Potatoes Yogurt.
Magnesium
Magnesium deficiency has been implicated in high blood pressure. Magnesium levels are shown to be consistently low in people suffering from hypertension. Leafy greens, legumes, whole grains, purslane, poppy seeds and string beans are good dietary sources for magnesium. (Or you can take a daily supplement of 400 milligrams of magnesium.)
Foods High in Magnesium
Beans, Okra, Broccoli, Oysters, Spinach, Chard, Plantain, Croaker, Scallops, Whole grain ready-to-eat and cooked cereals, Mackerel, Sea bass Whole wheat bread, Nuts and seeds.
Calcium
Calcium is an important nutrient for overall good health. Population studies indicate that hypertensive individuals consume less daily calcium. They may benefit from calcium supplementation. Several clinical studies have demonstrated the blood pressure lowering effect of calcium supplementation. Take 1 gram of elemental calcium daily.Good sources of calcium are diary foods such as milk, yogurt, and cheese. Be sure to choose skim or low fat varieties. Low fat and nonfat dairy products have more calcium than the high fat versions.
Foods High in Calcium
Broccoli, Perch, Turnip greens, Cheese, Salmon, Mackerel, Spinach, Yogurt, Milk.
Essential Fatty Acids
Increasing dietary linoleic acid decreases the blood pressure. Hypertensive patients are deficient in E series prostaglandins. Linoleic acid was found to normalize prostaglandins.
Vitamin C
The lower the serum vitamin C level, the higher the blood pressure in persons suffering from hypertension. Whether this is due to dietary habits or a blood pressure lowering effect of vitamin C has yet to be determined.
Zinc
Zinc has been shown to reverse cadmium induced hypertension effectively in rats.
Zinc supplementation has been shown to improve neuropsychological functions in Chinese children with zinc deficiency. It reduces the incidence and duration of acute and chronic diarrhea and acute lower respiratory tract infections in children in developing countries, resulting in decreased mortality. The key to supplement use is understanding who needs them and when. This usually involves an individual assessment so that the individual with the disease is treated--not the disease. This is an important distinction; if you supplement with nutrients indiscriminately it is clear they can cause quite serious damage.
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