When was the last time you had your blood pressure checked?  

Addressing issues that can play a negative role in influencing our health, longevity, and productivity is a primary concern for many of us–especially as we grow older. Sometimes we sail along and do not even realize there is a proverbial coral reef just below the surface waiting to sink our ship. Hypertension is one factor that often exists year after year without detection. Fortunately, high blood pressure can be easily detected through a painless test conducted by a skilled health care worker. 

Approximately half of those who have hypertension have not been diagnosed.² Getting blood pressure checked frequently is important since no single preventable factor contributes more on a worldwide scale to cardiovascular disease and all-cause mortality than hypertension.¹ 

How to Reverse and Prevent Hypertension 

The big question is, what can we do to prevent or reverse hypertension? This is where things start to get really good. For most people, simply modifying certain aspects of the lifestyle will bring blood pressure down into a healthy range. This often means hypertension medications can be discarded. Of course, managing hypertension with lifestyle and adjusting medication is a process that must be supervised by your physician. Attempting to do this without the trained eye of your doctor could result in dangerously wild swings in blood pressure. 

Lifestyle factors have substantial scientific backing to justify use of them to treat and reverse hypertension. These are the tried-and-true measures that many doctors now recommend.³ 

• Daily exercise 
• Attain ideal body weight 
• Whole Food Plant-Based diet 
• Limit salt consumption 
• Eliminate alcohol 
• Eliminate caffeine 
• Reduce stress 
• Get sufficient sleep
• Researchers worked with 129 subjects who were 40 to 80 years old that had been diagnosed with hypertension. Participants were randomly assigned to one of three interventions for 16 weeks (about 3 and a half months).^3a 

1. Dietary change, weight management, supervised exercise 

2. Diet only 

3. No change in diet or exercise 

Here’s how things turned out:

Group 1

• Lost an average of 19 lbs 
• Reduced BP by 16 systolic and 10 diastolic 
• 85% in this group no longer needed medication 

Group 2 – Reduced BP by 11 systolic and 8 diastolic 

Group 3 – Reduced BP by 3 systolic and 4 diastolic 

This highlights one important aspect of lifestyle management for disease. The better things you pile on the good side of the scale, the better your results will be. This intervention did not include considerations such as stress management of elimination of alcohol or caffeine. If these factors had been included the results would certainly have been even better. 

Getting Started  

For those who want to prevent hypertension these same factors will serve very well. At first it may be kind of an intimidating list to consider. Making such wide-ranging changes to the way we live is certainly no light matter. It will affect our relationships, how we work, and what we do with leisure time. That weekly sojourn with a pal to the pub for a few beers will need to be modified, but that friendship can continue. Instead of reaching for that salty, oily bag of chips, choose a satisfying packet of trail mix with healthy nuts, seeds, and dried fruit. Alterations such as these will take some effort and may even be uncomfortable at first, but before too long this new lifestyle will be set in place and little thought will be given to the “old” ways. 

Everyone reading this article has within them the resources necessary to implement new healthy habits.  Getting started may require a supportive team of helpers. Social support from friends and family is a game-changing factor in this endeavor.⁴ Your physician will also be a vital member of your hypertension fighting team.  

Consider taking the first steps toward implementing a new lifestyle. Freedom from elevated blood pressure is only one of the benefits you will experience by embarking on this journey. Just like pharmaceutical medications have side-effects, so do lifestyle treatments. The big difference is, just about all the side-effects from an improvement in lifestyle are positive. Here is a list of the more notable perks that come with a comprehensively healthy lifestyle. 

• Reduced risk of heart disease 
• Less diabetes 
• Improved resistance to cancer 
• Better control of blood sugar 
• Better mental health 

If there were more of an emphasis to live a healthy lifestyle and take advantage of these benefits, the world would be far less burdened with suffering and premature death. 

Secret Tips for Success 

Now let’s share a few of our tips for addressing high blood pressure through dietary change. Three important nutrients can elicit marked improvement.  

• Potassium 
• Omega-3 
• Magnesium 

Look for whole foods with stout concentrations of these. Here are a few suggestions to get you started. 

Potassium – Pistachio nuts, beet greens, pumpkin seeds, carob flour, yams 

Omega-3 – Flaxseed, chia seed, walnuts 

Magnesium – Pumpkin seeds, almonds, spinach, black beans 

No Time Like the Present 

Lifestyle change takes effort. However, the manifold benefits of such a choice will make it all worthwhile. We hope that this article will help you make a decision to advance to a healthier lifestyle. We look forward to helping you on this journey. For more information or to have an appointment with Dr. Facemire, please visit us at provider.kareo.com/dr-anabel-facemire.