High blood pressure: 3 foods and products to avoid

Age, stress and certain foods contribute to raised blood pressure. Fortunately, one of the simplest ways to control it is to consume more fruits and vegetables and less fast food, junk food and processed foods. Here are the foods you should eliminate from your diet.

By reducing your sodium intake, you can reduce your blood pressure dramatically. The Heart and Stroke Foundation of Canada recommends not consuming more than a teaspoon of salt per day, an equivalent of 2,300 milligrams of sodium.

• This may seem like a small amount, but studies of the DASH (Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension) diet indicate that it is very effective: by limiting sodium intake to 2,300 milligrams a day (one teaspoon), you can lower your blood pressure by 2.1/1.1 mmHg, and limiting intake to 1,533 milligrams (2/3 teaspoon) per day can reduce it even further to 6.7/3.5 mmHg.
• What you should know is that it isn't the salt we add to our food that poses the problem, but rather the salt that manufacturers add to their products. They are estimated to provide nearly 75 per cent of all the sodium we consume.
• Sodium is even hidden where we least expect it, such as in cereals. Therefore, the best way to reduce consumption is to remove these products from our diet.
• Here is another simple trick to use: the number of milligrams of sodium provided by a serving of a product should be less than or equal to the number of calories the product contains. So read the labels.

Consumed in moderation, alcohol raises HDL ("good") cholesterol and reduces the risk of blood clots; it is therefore considered safe for women to have one drink per day and men two drinks.

• However, in excessive amounts, alcohol raises blood pressure and increases the risk of stroke by 69 per cent.

Although the antioxidants in coffee may help reduce the risk of heart disease and cancer, caffeine, on the other hand, can worsen high blood pressure.

• A study carried out at Duke University showed that having four or five cups of coffee a day increases the production of adrenaline and other stress hormones by about 32 per cent, which in turn raises blood pressure.
• This effect occurred in the hour following consumption of the first cup of coffee and persisted throughout the day.
• The results are far from conclusive, however, since data from the Nurses Health Study indicate no link between high blood pressure and consumption of coffee. However, high blood pressure may be associated with the consumption of sodas and diet sodas.

When blood pressure is normal, the risk of having a stroke or heart attack is reduced by 40 per cent and 25 per cent respectively. It is therefore important to consume foods that are less of a danger to your blood pressure.