Ten Foods That Can Lower Your Blood Pressure

High blood pres­sure is a seri­ous health con­di­tion that can con­tribute to heart attacks, strokes, aneurysms, kid­ney dis­ease, and other prob­lems. High blood pres­sure (or hyper­ten­sion) is a com­mon med­ical prob­lem, espe­cially among dia­bet­ics.

While there are many ways to rein in high blood pres­sure, one of the sim­plest and best meth­ods is to eat a good diet. Here are ten foods found to be espe­cially effec­tive in low­er­ing blood pres­sure in clin­i­cal research.

Bananas

Foods high in potas­sium, such as bananas, help to lower blood pres­sure. This is because an exces­sive salt intake is one of the lead­ing fac­tors in hyper­ten­sion, and potas­sium helps to nat­u­rally reg­u­late salt lev­els in the body. Plus, bananas are an easy-to-eat nat­ural snack.

Beans

Beans of all sorts can reduce blood pres­sure. Besides their potas­sium con­tent, beans have lots of heart-healthy fiber. A healthy heart can bet­ter main­tain good blood pres­sure. Beans are also high in pro­tein, which has been con­nected to low blood pres­sure in research.

Spinach

This dark, leafy green is great for your health in gen­eral, and will specif­i­cally help blood pres­sure because of the potas­sium, mag­ne­sium, and folate found in the veg­etable. Like potas­sium, folate and mag­ne­sium are valu­able for keep­ing blood pres­sure down.

Blueberries

An easy nat­ural snack, blue­ber­ries pro­vide your body with flavonoids, a group of nat­ural com­pounds shown to help pre­vent hyper­ten­sion by low­er­ing blood pres­sure lev­els.

Chocolate

You would­n’t think that a food as tasty as choco­late could have any pos­i­tive health ben­e­fits, but choco­late does lower blood pres­sure. Research has dis­cov­ered that the cacao found in choco­late con­tains com­pounds that limit blood pres­sure lev­els by dilat­ing blood ves­sels. Opt for dark choco­late, which has more cacao.

Beets

The juice of this root holds nitrates that have been found to quickly lower blood pres­sure among hyper­ten­sion patients. Once ingested, nitrates become nitric oxide, a gas that helps blood ves­sels stay dilated by relax­ing their smooth mus­cle.

Potatoes

The min­er­als potas­sium and mag­ne­sium are found in abun­dance in pota­toes, so eat­ing this food will put a damper on your high blood pres­sure. Potatoes also con­tain nitrates. Avoid load­ing your pota­toes with large amounts of salty but­ter or sour cream, or fry­ing them in unhealthy seed oils.

Milk

Products with lots of cal­cium are good for high blood pres­sure, mak­ing milk a great option for those with hyper­ten­sion. Try drink­ing skim milk, though, since milk rich in fat will exac­er­bate blood pres­sure prob­lems.

Olive Oil

Daily con­sump­tion of at least two table­spoons of phe­nol-rich extra vir­gin olive oil can be effec­tive in low­er­ing blood pres­sure. In one study, 35 per­cent of the par­tic­i­pants were able to dis­con­tinue their hyper­ten­sive med­ica­tions after con­sum­ing EVOO for six months.

Find recipes with olive oil to replace unhealthy fats in your daily cook­ing.

Oatmeal

A high-fiber diet pro­tects from hyper­ten­sion, mak­ing oat­meal a good choice. Since fiber is digested slowly, blood sugar lev­els are kept in check, which in turn reduces blood pres­sure. Plus, oat­meal has very lit­tle fat and sodium.

Hypertension is some­times termed a ​‘silent killer’ because the mal­ady has no obvi­ous symp­toms. Considering how com­mon the con­di­tion is, check with your doc­tor and con­sider mak­ing changes to incor­po­rate more of these heart-healthy foods in your diet.