Normal blood pressure has a systolic reading of less than 120 and a diastolic of less than 80.  (Though normal can vary from person to person.  Ask your doctor or other health care professional what is normal for you).

Hypertension is a systolic reading of 140 OR more or a diastolic reading of 90 or more.

Treatment of hypertension includes:

Loosing weight (even just a few pounds can help)

Exercise

Diet changes

Medications

There are currently eight types of medications used to treat hypertension (high blood pressure).

Central acting medications – these directly affect your nervous system to reduce nerve signals that cause your blood vessels to constrict.  Example – clonidine.

Diuretics – these are better known as “water pills”.  These help your body eliminate excess water in your body by urinating it out.  Examples – Furosemide and hydrochlorothiazide.

Direct vasodilators – relax the blood vessel walls’ muscles – thus dilating them.  Examples – minoxidil and hydralazine

Angiotensin – converting enzyme inhibitors – these keep your body from producing a hormone that causes the blood vessels to constrict.  Examples – lisinopril, quinapril, and benazepril (and other medications with the ending of the word = …pril)

Beta – blockers – these slow the heart rate.  This causes less force to be exerted on your blood vessel walls and reduces blood pressure.  Examples include – atenolol, propranolol, and carvedilol (and other medications with the ending of the word = ….olol

Angiotensin II receptor blockers – these protects your body from a hormone that causes the blood vessels to constrict.  Examples – irbesartan, candesartan, and olmesartan (and other medications with ending of the word = …..sartan).

Calcium channel blockers – these keep your blood vessels from constricting by keeping calcium from entering your body’s cells.  Examples – diltiazem, felodipine, nicardipine, and verapamil.

Alpha blockers – these help relax blood vessels by reducing nerve signals.  Examples – doxazosin, terazosin, and prazosin (and other medications with the ending of the word = ….zosin).

If you receive a new prescription from your doctor – make sure to take the medication as prescribed.

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The leading cause of death in the USA are heart diseases. Almost everybody who has a heart disease started with a high blood pressure that evolved and lead to a more severe condition. High blood pressure is called the silent killer by many because it has no symptoms, it can’t be cured by medication or surgery, and in time it can cause heart attacks or other life-threatening complications.

Diet has an extremely important role in lowering blood pressure, especially because it can be one of its causes since the modern diet that contains a lot of fats and junkfood can lead to a high blood pressure in a few years.

If you are an overweight person then try to lose weight by exercising and cutting down the fatty foods. If you lose weight and stop eating fats you will certainly lower your blood pressure in short time.

The main ingredient that can directly affect blood pressure is sodium. Sodium is needed by the body, but the modern day diets contain twice the amount of sodium that should be absorbed by the body from a normal meal. Doubling the levels of sodium from your body can have serious effects on the blood pressure.

In conclusion the idea is to eat food that has low sodium levels and also to eat less fats. Well what aliments that fit the description above do doctors recommend, and what are the food types that we shouldn’t eat?

First of all you should eat less salt. Salt is a rich source of sodium, if fact salt is made up of sodium and chloride, so only salt alone can be enough to fill the entire normal amount of sodium that the body needs daily.

Then you should start eating a lot of fruits, vegetables, and other fiber-rich foods that have the ability to lower the blood pressure. The most effective are grains, green salad, apples, frozen vegetables, low-fat dairy products, nuts, oranges, bananas, and Italian bread.

Doctors advice those who wish to lower their blood pressure to change their daily diet so that it contains eight servings of grain products, four or five servings of vegetables and fruits, three servings of low-fat dairy products, and only 2 servings of meat or fish per day. Sweets, oil or fats should be avoided. This is the standard high blood pressure diet, also called DASH diet. (Dietary Approach to Stop Hypertension).

Least but not last, you need to quit alcohol and smoking. You may respect the DASH diet perfectly, but if you still drink and smoke it can be useless, because alcohol and tobacco smoke are the main enemies of low blood pressure.

AS you can see, diet’s role in blood pressure is very important, and many prefer to treat their hypertension without drugs and other medication, just with the help of the diet.

You can check more about lower blood pressure and especially about foods that lower blood pressure by visiting http://www.lowerbloodpressure.info

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