Reaching Your Target Blood Pressure
Watch What You Eat and Drink
Blood pressure is the pressure that blood places on the walls of your arteries while circulating throughout your body. A reading of your blood pressure is the ratio of pressure when your heart is beating—called systolic—and pressure when your heart is at rest—called diastolic—in millimetres of mercury (mmHg). Blood pressure of 120/80 mmHg is considered optimal.
Do Food and Alcohol Affect Blood Pressure?
Food and alcohol have been shown to have significant effects on blood pressure. More important, unlike other risk factors for developing hypertension—such as your family medical history, age, gender, and race—nutrition is one that you can control. Along with regular exercise, stress reduction, and not smoking, healthy eating and drinking habits can have positive results:
- If you have normal blood pressure, you may avoid ever having hypertension.
- If you have mild hypertension, you may avoid having to take medication to control it.
- If you have moderate to severe hypertension, you may avoid having to take as much medication to control it.
Nutrition factors that are known to contribute to high blood pressure, or hypertension, include:
- Being overweight. Excess weight increases blood pressure—and raises the risk of developing diabetes, another contributing factor to heart disease.
- Eating too much salt. Excess salt in your diet makes your body retain fluids, which increases blood pressure.
- Drinking too much alcohol. Excess alcohol increases blood pressure and contributes to being overweight.
Why Is Control of Blood Pressure Important?
Blood pressure of 140/90 mmHg or greater is considered high. Hypertension, increases long-term health risks such as:
- Stroke
- Heart attack
- Heart failure
- Kidney disease
- Blindness
See your doctor regularly to have your blood pressure checked. More than one in five people 18 years of age or older have hypertension; 42 percent of them are unaware of their condition. If high blood pressure is treated and controlled, the risk of having a stroke, for example, can be reduced by as much as 40 percent.
Do Healthy Food Choices Affect Blood Pressure?
Making healthy food choices can help you to control both your weight and your blood pressure. As body weight increases, so does blood pressure. Being overweight increases your risk of developing hypertension by two to six times. Losing just 4.5 kilograms (10 pounds) can reduce your blood pressure—and the result is greatest if you are overweight and have hypertension.
Does Eating Less Salt Reduce High Blood Pressure?
Your body’s need for salt is minimal: about 1 gram per day. Current nutrition guidelines recommend a daily sodium intake of not more than 2.4 grams—the equivalent of 6 grams (1 teaspoon) of table salt. This amount includes all sodium and salt—what is contained in the food, what you add to it when cooking, and what you add at the table before eating it. By reducing salt in your diet, you may be able to reduce your blood pressure by as much as 6/2 mmHg or more—the result is greatest if you are 45 years of age or older and have hypertension. Reducing salt in your diet can also improve the effectiveness of medication to control blood pressure.
Is Blood Pressure Affected by Alcohol?
Drinking alcohol in moderation has been shown to have certain health benefits, such as reducing the risk of atherosclerosis and coronary artery disease. Excessive amounts of alcohol, however, can increase blood pressure and reduce the effectiveness of medication to control hypertension. (Alcohol also is high in calories and low in nutritional value.) In general, consumption of alcohol should not exceed two drinks per day for men and one drink per day for women. High blood pressure due to drinking more than moderate amounts of alcohol usually returns to normal once excessive consumption of alcohol is stopped.
Have your blood pressure checked regularly. Know your blood pressure goals and keep a written record of your readings.
"My doctors told me ... my blood pressure is down so low that I can start reading the newspapers."
— Ronald Reagan
Food and alcohol affect your blood pressure
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