Juicing for Hypertension
Your blood pressure is a measure of how much pressure your blood puts on your arteries as it flows through them. If you have high blood pressure, it means your blood is putting too much pressure on your arteries. Also called hypertension, high blood pressure in adults is expressed as anything over 120/80mm Hg.
Fruits and vegetables are an essential part of a diet for managing hypertension. They provide a range of nutrients, such as vitamins, minerals, and antioxidants that help in lowering blood pressure. Antioxidants are also essential for heart health, protecting the cardiovascular system, and maintaining steady blood pressure during pregnancy.
Your blood pressure is affected by many different things in your life, including your activity level, diet, stress response, age, reactions to different medications, and even the time of day. Your blood pressure tends to be highest in the morning and lowest when you're asleep.
You can promote healthy blood pressure by consuming foods high in certain antioxidants that work together to relax your arteries and reduce free radical damage.
How to Lower Blood PressureDiet and exercise play a role in lowering blood pressure. It's also important to stop smoking; cigarette smoke causes damage to blood vessel walls.
Although all fruits and vegetables seem to contribute to lowering the risk of heart attacks, the most beneficial include green leafy vegetables such as lettuce, spinach, Swiss chard, and mustard greens; cruciferous vegetables such as broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage, Brussels sprouts, bok choy, and kale; and citrus fruits such as oranges, lemons, limes, and grapefruit (and their juices).
Consider the following studies when deciding how to make juice that can lower your blood pressure:
Studies show that some types of casein peptide helps lower blood pressure by causing blood vessels to open, or dilate.
Scientists at the University of California, Davis, conducted studies on adults who were pre-hypertensive and found that grape seed extract helped reduce their blood pressure.
A study by the Lipid Research Laboratory in Haifa, Israel, showed that antioxidant compounds in pomegranates may play a role in reducing blood pressure by decreasing the effects of damaging free radical damage.
Research conducted as part of the Harvard-based Nurses' Health Study and Health Professionals Follow-up Study, which included almost 110,000 men and women whose health and dietary habits were followed for fourteen years, found that the higher the average daily intake of fruits and vegetables, the lower the risk of developing cardiovascular disease. People who consumed eight or more servings of fresh fruits and vegetables daily were 30 percent less likely to have a heart attack or stroke than those who consumed just one and a half servings.
When researchers combined findings from the Harvard studies with several other long-term studies in the United States and Europe and looked at coronary heart disease and stroke separately, they discovered a similar protective effect: Individuals who ate more than five servings of fruits and vegetables per day had roughly a 20 percent lower risk of coronary heart disease and stroke, compared with individuals who ate less than three servings per day.
Fiber, which is abundant in fruits and vegetables, can help keep blood pressure down, while most of the minerals found in vegetables also help prevent heart attacks and strokes. A potassium deficiency may cause high blood pressure and can be corrected by consuming fruits and vegetables rich in the mineral.
You can juice your way to lower blood pressure by combining some of the following foods into fresh, delicious juice:
Swiss chard. High in vitamins A, K, C and E, and fiber, it also contains heart-healthy minerals like magnesium, manganese, potassium, iron, copper, and calcium.
Broccoli. Rich in vitamins A and C, it's also high in calcium and a lowfat alternative to dairy products. Broccoli is also packed with fiber and folic acid.
Cabbage. A great source of vitamin C and fiber, cabbage also contains the nitrogenous compound indoles, which helps lower blood pressure.
Cauliflower. It contains the compound allicin, which helps reduce the risk of stroke and also improves heart health. Allicin also helps detoxify the blood and liver.
Spinach. It is high in choline and inositol, chemicals that help prevent heart diseases like arteriosclerosis.
Lettuce. Rich in beta-carotene, the antioxidant that fights heart diseases, lettuce also contains vitamin C, folic acid, potassium, and fiber.
Fruits are packed with vitamin C and also are proven to help lower blood pressure.
Citrus fruits. This family of fruit is the most efficient in lowering high blood pressure and is a rich source of vitamin C, carbohydrates, potassium, folate, and phytochemicals, which help prevent heart disease.
Bananas. Bananas are rich in potassium, the antioxidant vitamin B6, vitamin C, and dietary fiber — all important for heart health.
Apples. Apples provide a wide range of phytonutrients such as catechin, quercetin, phloridzin, and chlorogenic acid, which act as antioxidants to fight disease. Apples also contain fiber and flavonoids.
