For optimum health, a well-balanced diet is necessary. When it comes to blood pressure, a well-balanced diet puts lipids in the body where they belong, decreasing your risk of hypertension and high blood pressure. Good blood pressure reflects a healthy lifestyle. “People with high blood pressure and diabetes suffer from illnesses brought on by their way of life. “If you modify your lifestyle, those issues will go away,” says the expert. said Dick Gregory.
High-calorie, high-salt, and high-saturated-fat diets are the worst foods for high blood pressure and should be avoided because they increase body weight, which raises blood pressure.
high blood pressure symptoms
Specifically, if we talk about high blood pressure symptoms, not worst foods, it is considered as a severe disease because it causes numerous disorders in your body, some of the symptoms are.
- Fatigue or confusion
- Shortness of breath
- Visual changes
- Blood in the urine
- Severe headaches
High blood pressure causes
There are many causes of high blood pressure. We can split the disease into two types according to their behavior.
The blood pressure issue is concerned with two hypertension levels: Primary hypertension (common) and Secondary hypertension (Less common). Although they are both connected with high blood pressure, they have different structures and damage.
Primary Hypertension grows very slowly in your body and the reason behind this disease (may be termed as essential hypertension) is not specifically determined. While, there are some factors that the doctors revealed that it may be developed in your body through your physical changes, atmosphere, lifestyle, and genes. Primary hypertension sometimes enters your body and you don’t even realize, the first reason is the gradual growth rate and the other is moderate effects.
Secondary Hypertension is not as common as primary hypertension but damages your body more frequently. It’s the severe type of hypertension that may grow in your body due to the reaction of other diseases such as kidney problems, heart defects, alcohol abuse…etc. In short, this condition is a result of a serious disease.
Particularly, for high blood pressure causes, we can mention many factors but different patients got the disease from different causes. Therefore, no one knows the exact causes of High Blood Pressure but you can consider these things as a cause.
- Stress
- Genetics
- Diet Issues
- Older Age
- Alcohol consumption
- Diet bad for Blood Pressure
If you are going through High blood pressure, then you must have to change your diet. You can create a diet plan with the omission of these 10 foods discussed below.
10 foods to avoid if you have high blood pressure
1. Salts
Salts can increase your blood pressure due to the presence of sodium as its essence. Sodium circulates in your body and increases water retention which responsible for the disease.
Although you can take 6 grams of salt as a maximum intake daily, it sometimes works against your blood pressure stability if you have experienced a blood problem issue. Sometimes, we don’t even realize that we having an extra amount of sugar in your diet because we are obsessed with eating processed foods, such as crisp, frozen meals. Etc. These kinds of foods contain high sodium level and cause a great push to a blood pressure issue.
You can prevent direct damage of salt to your body by adding it to the boiling stage of food. If you are habitual of sprinkling it on your daily food then must have to change your habit. According to Dr. Al-Zubaidi. If you kept using excessive salt in a long run, you can experience high blood pressure problems even if you are enjoying a happy life without any blood pressure issue.
“Not adding a lot of salt to your meals is a healthy everyday habit,” he added.
2. Alcohol
We already know that alcohol can damage a lot more than other drinks if taken in great amount. It can also increase your blood pressure levels if the usage exceeds more than 3 drink servings in one sitting. Moreover, it defects the meditation of blood pressure and gets you losses on health.
Heavy drinkers can frequently experience down in their blood pressure level. If they start to drink moderately, their upper blood pressure may be decreased by the number of 2 to 4 mm of Hg and that of lower blood pressure is 1 to 2 mm of Hg.
Although alcohol consumption decreases the chance of getting hit by several heart diseases, it never compromises to elevate your blood pressure. Your daily consumption should not be more than 2 drinks if men and 1 drink if women. This way, you are free from gaining extra weight and dehydration which in turn causes high blood pressure.
3. Sugar
Sugar should not be used in your high blood pressure diet because it affects your body in numerous ways. Overweight and obesity are very common now because of the usage of excessive sugar. As per American Heart Association directions, the daily dosage of sugar can be high as much as 9 teaspoons for men and 6 teaspoons for women. If you’re habitual of taking more sugar than that then you have to hold your hand because it eventually takes you to blood pressure problems.
Processed foods and other non-vegetable carbs should be much avoided for controlling blood pressure issues because they are high in sugar and harmful in high blood pressure diet. It causes an elevation in uric acid, which in turn responsible for high blood pressure.
Nowadays, sugar is present in many packed or frozen foods. Therefore, you have to control your usage over some foods or drinks such as fruit juice, ketchup, sports drink, Granola, Chocolate milk… etc. If you do so, fewer chances are there for high blood pressure.
4. Frozen pizza
The ingredients used in frozen pizza are extremely bad for high blood pressure diet. As they are high in sodium, sugar, and hydrogenated palm oil, numerous diseases can grow in your body due to their usage. Cheese, which is known as a true ingredient in pizza also torture your body with a high amount of sodium. As we already discussed the bad impact of sodium in your body and how strongly it is avoided for high blood pressure patients.
You can check the quantity of sodium when buying frozen food. If sodium content is higher than 600 mg, then you can think of avoiding this food because your health should be your first priority. Also, blood pressure is not a light disease, it sticks to you if you and keep working to make your weaker day by day if you don’t handle it properly. The maximum limit of sodium your body can exercise is 2,300 mg per day for a healthy person and frozen pizza has much more sodium which is beyond the limit. Therefore, frozen pizza is prohibited by doctors for those who are looking to maintain their health.
5. Proceed foods
They’re the worst things to eat if you’ve got high blood pressure. Processed foods contain the majority of the salt in your diet. They’re high in salt, low-fiber fibre carbs, sugar, and trans and saturated fats. All of these substances are detrimental to blood pressure as well as a variety of other illnesses.
Proceed foods may increase you at risk for a variety of illnesses, including heart disease, LDL cholesterol, strokes, and high blood pressure, because to the amount of trans and saturated fats. The only method to reduce their negative effects on your body is to eliminate them from your diet and replace them with full-fat dairy products. In this approach, your blood pressure and heart health will be properly regulated.
6. Snacks and fries
Snacks and fries are very popular with kids and grown-ups as well because they are crunchy and light. But you don’t know why doctors don’t support us to eat them. They are high in sodium and develop a high risk of creating a blood pressure issue in your body.
Other snacks like popcorn also contain much amount of salt and sodium. Moreover, some brands also make sure to add butter and sugar to make them tasty but unhealthy enough for people under high blood pressure treatment.
7. Caffeinated beverages
Although it is not clear how much it evolves your blood pressure, it is researched that it may give a considerable push even if you are healthy. Many people are used to drinking tea regularly, but they don’t know the result of this habitual activity. One of the articles published in the Mayo clinic stated about the study of several researchers, they include in the research that usage of caffeine could block a hormone and disturb the working which is to keep the arteries widened. Some others researchers believe that caffeine may force your body to produce more adrenaline which causes elevated blood pressure in the vessels.
Sometimes caffeine behaves differently, like if you are not sensitive to caffeine and drink caffeinated beverages regularly (moderate amount) then it does not affect your blood pressure. But if you are not habitual of drinking caffeine, it may increase your blood pressure promptly, but temporarily.
Hence, the high consumption of caffeinated drinks should be avoided. Especially, when you are a youngster and are more sensitive to caffeine.
8. Bread
Bread can be served with healthy vegetables in breakfast but the unhealthy factor you don’t know is the excess amount of sodium in it. A Pita bread contains 300 mg of sodium and a bagel contains 500 mg of salts. Both are unhealthy and should be avoided in high blood pressure diet.
A report from the American health association showed that yeast bread contributes the most amount of sodium in Americans’ diets. The comparison of a bread slice with potato chips can make you feel worried because a slice of bread contains equal sodium content as 22 potato chips. Consider eating sandwiches with an added amount of 1,315 mg of sodium due to cheddar cheese, it is one of the worst foods for high blood pressure. Even you are free from blood pressure issues, still we suggest you lower the usage of bread and cheeses as well to get the blood circulating at moderate levels.
9. Soda drinks
Once you get familiar with drinking soda drinks, it’s hard to get these out of your high blood pressure diet because they taste so good. People who drink soda regularly can also affect their healthy food components like magnesium, calcium, and potassium.
Soda drinks are mixed with more sugar than any other fresh drink and the person which consumes it destroy his/her nutrients as well as add 400 extra calories with a nutrient-free source.
Also, researchers from a school called School of Public Health at Imperial College in London analyze an experiment on 2,700 middle-aged people in the U.K and the U.S. They calculated that people who are drinking more than one soda or any other sugar-sweetened beverage per day have a high blood pressure than those who are not drinking in much amount. Furthermore, the blood pressure keeps on going to higher levels day by day and pulling them to create heavy risks of cardiovascular problems.
Moreover, taking soda to quench your thirst is more dangerous because it directly splits in your body into harmful pieces and eventually increases your blood pressure.
10. Preservative foods
It includes all the foods that are packaged to preserve for long use. The main essence of preservation is sodium which is not good for blood pressure diet.
They include canned soups, canned tomato products, instant pudding, vegetable juice, frozen pizza… Etc. Shortly, these foods are pleasant to the tongue but unpleasant to blood pressure health and can make you unhealthy with many severe diseases.
Conclusion:
Keeping a maintained level of blood pressure is necessary for a healthy life. High blood pressure has many causes but the diet can alter many health issues and high blood pressure is one of them. You can control your diet by checking a few things. In a nutshell, foods with a high content of sugar, salt, sodium, trans and saturated fats are advised to avoid high blood pressure issues.