Bananas

I can't remember who told me this but anyway I've been eating bananas (1 a day) as the potassium is apparently good for controlling your blood pressure.

well 4 weeks ago my BP was 128/ 88 today it was 130/70 so despite having dashed in to the Drs with 1 minute to go my bottom number was still good.

So in addition to the asprin I'll keep up the banana a day thing. The GP thought there was probably something in it so told me to keep it up.

I'll give anything a go but some of the rest of you might like to try it too. THere might be more to it.

Hi Sparkling,

Im sorry I meant to reply to you the other day but have been poorly & not quite 'with it'!

Any way to answer your question...!

Salt plays a part in blood pressure.
Unfortunately salt is often called sodium on food labelling & this can be misleading. The most salt we should have in a day is 6 grams and this equates to 2.4 grams of sodium. So anything that is labelled just sodium needs to be multiplied by 2.5 to find its true salt value.

The damaging part of salt (the sodium) is slow to process in our bodies. The more salt we have on board, the more water / fluid it will hold on to & that means your kidneys have to work harder to get rid of it. This puts blood pressure up.

Foods rich in potassium, like broccoli or bananas, will help to balance this. Potassium & sodium work like a seesaw. The more fruit & vegetables you eat, your potassium levels will go up and your sodium levels will go down. Current guidelines are to eat 5 portions of fruit & vegetables every day, however, there is research to show that people with higher blood pressure benefit from aiming towards 7-9 portions a day for this reason.

Unfortunately there a no 'natural' remedies that have been proven to control blood pressure but there are a few that will help some people. The Omega complexes or Allicin (garlic) for example.

Relaxation techniques have been shown to offer relief in the short term too - things like Yoga & meditation. These are often effective due to the controlled breathing techniques.


Hope that helps!

Best Wishes
Liz

thanks Liz it's good to konw that it helps but isn't the answer on it's own!