Diet and high blood pressure, with dietitian Helen Bond

While there’s no miracle cure for high blood pressure, it’s possible through diet and exercise to keep it under control and even bring it down. This can help you minimise some of the long term health risks linked to this condition, such as Heart Disease and Stroke, and if you make some minor adjustments to the way you eat, you can go a long way towards managing high blood pressure. Most of these are in keeping with general healthy eating guidelines, so your overall health and wellbeing will benefit too.

There are two important minerals that can have a significant effect on your blood pressure. There’s Sodium which is found in salt: it will increase your blood pressure if you eat too much; then there’s Potassium which occurs naturally in a wide range of foods and can actually help to bring your blood pressure down. Here are some simple changes you can make to your diet and lifestyle which can be very beneficial for your blood pressure. If you cut back on the amount of salt in your diet to no more than 6g per day, you can help maintain a healthy blood pressure. Use pepper, herbs or lemon juice and chilli, garlic and spices for flavouring instead of adding salt to your cooking or at the table. Always read the label: many processed foods contain higher than average amounts of salt, which is often used as a preservative and flavouring agent.

The Food Standards Agency advises that a lot of salt is 1.5g or more per 100g and a little is 0.3g or less, per 100g. So get into the habit of checking food labels. Eat your vegetables. Most vegetables are a good source of Potassium and especially potatoes, sweet potatoes, broccoli, sprouts, cabbage and spinach. A portion is 80g or roughly the size of your fist. Get fruity with apricots, strawberries, bananas and orange juice and grapefruit, mangoes, melons, tomatoes also and prunes. They are all good sources of Potassium and are blood pressure friendly. And drink in moderation. Men should not regularly drink more than 3 – 4 units of alcohol per day and women, no more than 2 – 3 units.