How Can You Lower Blood Pressure Through Dietary Changes?
High blood pressure is a leading cause of stroke, heart disease, and kidney failure. As a hypertension specialist, I’ve seen first-hand on multiple occasions the power of dietary changes on controlling blood pressure, especially when such changes are combined with other lifestyle changes such as increasing exercise, weight loss, alcohol avoidance and stress reduction.
Sodium Intake
If there’s one thing to avoid, it’s sodium. Some individuals have a particularly ‘salt-sensitive’ form of hypertension and can see a significant decline in their blood pressure readings by cutting down on their sodium intake. The maximum recommended sodium intake for those with hypertension is 2000mg per day.1 For perspective, living in North America, it’s common to have in the range of 3000 – 5000mg of sodium per day if we’re not careful and paying attention to labels. Many of my patients tell me that this is not an issue for them as they don’t add salt to their food, which is a great start, but most of the sodium that we consume is hidden in our food, especially in foods that come pre-packaged, canned, or from restaurants.
The DASH Diet
The diet that has the best evidence for lowering blood pressure is called the DASH diet, with DASH being an acronym that stands for Dietary Approach to Stopping Hypertension. This is a Mediterranean-type diet that contains less-processed and more naturally occurring foods such as fruits and vegetables, low-fat dairy products such as low-fat Greek yoghurt or skim or 1% milk, lean protein such as fish and poultry instead of red meats, and beans, nuts, and seeds. This diet was shown in a landmark study in the New England Journal in 1997 to reduce blood pressure as much by 5.5mmHg systolic and 3 mmHg diastolic over an 8-week period when compared to a standard Western control diet that contained the same amount of sodium.2
Part of the reason that the DASH diet is likely effective in lowering blood pressure is due to the higher fibre content found in fruits and vegetables. Recent evidence in mice has shown that increasing dietary fibre has beneficial effects for lowering blood pressure by acting through our gut microbiota to form short chain fatty acids.3 This is certainly something I’m keeping my eye on as we continue to learn more about the importance of a health gut microbiota in preventing disease, and the damaging and inflammatory effects of ultra-processed foods.
Conclusion
If you’re worried about your blood pressure, making changes starts with your choices at the grocery store.
References
1. Guideline: Sodium intake for adults and children. Geneva: World Health Organization; 2012:1-56.
2. Appel LJ, Moore TJ, Obarzanek E, Vollmer WM, Svetkey LP, Sacks FM, Bray GA, Vogt TM, Cutler JA, Windhauser MM, Lin PH. A clinical trial of the effects of dietary patterns on blood pressure. New England journal of medicine. 1997 Apr 17;336(16):1117-24.
3. Avellaneda-Franco L, Xie L, Nakai M, Barr JJ, Marques FZ. Dietary fiber intake impacts gut bacterial and viral populations in a hypertensive mouse model. Gut microbes. 2024 Dec 31;16(1):2407047.