High blood pressure (hypertension) is a condition in where the force of blood pumping through the arteries is consistently too high.
When this occurs, the walls of the arteries are extended beyond their normal limit, which can lead to damage and scarring and put people at risk for heart attack, stroke, and kidney disease.
One of the first lines of defence against rising blood pressure is diet. By adopting a more healthy and well-balanced way of eating your reading will be naturally lowered.
This does not always have to equate to foods consumed as certain drinks have been found to be just as powerful.
Beetroot juice
It may sound like a type of drink best avoided, but the health benefits of beetroot juice are certainly impressive.
According to research from the Queen Mary University of London, drinking a cup of beetroot juice each day could significantly lower blood pressure.
In the study, 64 volunteers suffering with long-lasting blood pressure supplemented their diet with a daily dose of nitrate in the form of beetroot juice with the effects monitored by researchers.
No adverse side effects were observed, and results suggested that beetroot juice can be a simple and effective way to manage high blood pressure.
Skimmed milk
One study found that consuming low-fat dairy such as skimmed milk can lower blood pressure.
The research also showed that eating low-fat dairy as part of a super low-fat diet can lower blood pressure even more.
More specifically, "our data showed that people who ate more dairy products had lower systolic blood pressure," said researcher Dr Luc Djosse, of Harvard Medical School in Boston.
Systolic blood pressure is the pressure caused by the heart contracting and pushing out blood.
Cranberry juice
A 2020 study published with the American Heart Association found that low calorie cranberry juice helps to lower blood pressure in healthy adults
In the study, participants drank either low-calorie juice or a placebo drink every day for eight weeks as part of a controlled diet.
After eight weeks, blood pressure values had significantly dropped for those drinking the low-calorie juice.
The placebo group showed no change.
Researchers noted the antioxidants found in cranberry juice helped with hypertension risk.
Tea
Tea lovers rejoice, as numerous research has found that either green tea, black tea, oolong tea or even just regular tea has positive effects on hypertension.
One study, published in Internal Medicine, looked at the effect of tea drinking over the past decade for men and women.
The study found that drinking as little as a half-cup of tea per day may lower the risk of high blood pressure by nearly 50%.
"Nonhabitual tea drinkers were at higher risk of developing hypertension than habitual tea drinkers, and there was a progressive reduction in risk associated with higher levels of tea consumption in daily intake," wrote the researchers.
"However, tea consumption for more than one year was not associated with a further reduction of hypertension risk."
Again, this positive effect was down to tea’s powerful antioxidant content.
Other foods and drinks rich in antioxidants which may help lower blood pressure include dark chocolate, blueberries, pecans, red wine, Goji berries or kale.
