The #1 Habit to Break If You Have High Blood Pressure, According to a Doctor
Let’s not bury the lede here: The No. 1 habit to break if you have high blood pressure is to avoid foods high in added sodium and saturated fat, like restaurant foods and certain ultra-processed foods. Restaurant foods are pretty straightforward, but processed foods fall on a spectrum. Technically speaking, if human hands are involved, that counts as processing. So even foods with no added ingredients, like a prewashed bag of spinach or a package of skinless chicken breast, are processed. However, there’s a big difference between that minimal amount of processing and ultra-processing.
Ultra-processed foods—think chips, crackers, candy, packaged baked goods and soda—are often high in sodium, added sugars, saturated fat and preservatives that help extend their shelf life. “Not all processing is bad,” says David L. Katz, M.D., M.P.H., FACPM, FACP, FACLM, a specialist in internal medicine and preventive medicine with expertise in nutrition.
“Ultra-processed foods contain ingredients that home cooks would never, or hardly ever, use—including flavorizers, colorizers, texturizers and emulsifiers,” says Katz. “This isn’t about spinach leaves that were rinsed and bagged, or lentils that were dried and bagged, or oats that were pressed, rolled and packaged.”
And it’s not that the occasional salt-and-vinegar chips or frozen pizza are the worst things in the world. The issue is the quantity of them that we get in our diets. Upward of 58% of the total daily calories Americans eat come from ultra-processed foods. And the current research—though almost entirely observational—shows a link between ultra-processed foods and high blood pressure.
Why can ultra-processed foods spell trouble for blood pressure? For starters, they’re typically high in added sodium. “Sodium is a major preventable driver of blood pressure variation,” says Katz. ” In addition to the sodium, he says, leaning on ultra-processed convenience foods also tends to deliver more added sugar and saturated fats that may increase heart health risk and crowd out whole foods in your diet—both of which can drive blood pressure up.
Reference/Sourses:
Comments