What foods raises blood pressure?

Many diets are very specific about what you can’t eat. However, the most powerful (and empowering) diets help you focus instead on what you can and should eat. In fact, research shows that adding certain foods to your diet is just as important as cutting back on others. 

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That especially holds true for a heart-healthy diet. 

The connection between nutrition and your heart 

Good nutrition and a healthy heart go hand in hand. For example, following a heart-healthy diet can help reduce your total cholesterol and bad (or LDL) cholesterol, lower your blood sugars and triglycerides, and decrease your blood pressure. For instance, potassium — which is found in many fruits and vegetables — can help lower your blood pressure. 

Even more importantly, making good diet choices can also address risk factors for heart disease and heart-related conditions. That means eating healthier foods can reduce or even eliminate the chance you’ll develop certain health issues down the line. 

What to eat and avoid with a heart-healthy diet 

According to the American Heart Association and American College of Cardiology Lifestyle Management Guideline on the Primary Prevention of Cardiovascular Disease (2019), a heart-healthy diet focuses on: 

• Vegetables. 
• Fruits. 
• Nuts. 
• Whole grains. 
• Lean animal protein. 
• Fish. 

Heart-healthy diets should avoid: 

• Trans fats. 
• Saturated fats. 
• Red meat (beef, pork, veal and lamb). 
• Processed meats (hot dogs, salami, pepperoni, bologna). 
• Refined carbohydrates (white breads, crackers, salty snack foods, baked goods). 
• Sweetened beverages (such as soda).  

However, moderation is key. It can be difficult to eliminate some of these things from your diet completely, so don’t feel guilty about occasionally having a small serving of an unhealthy indulgence. The trick is to keep the portion small. 

In contrast, you shouldn’t overdo it on some recommended healthy foods either. For example, registered dietitian Julia Zumpano, RD, notes you should limit fish that’s high in mercury, like albacore tuna, swordfish and king mackerel, to 6 ounces a week.

Heart-healthy nutrition tips 

It can be overwhelming knowing what to eat (and how much to eat) to be healthy. Zumpano offers some tips on how to put together a balanced, heart-friendly diet. 

Increase your fruits and vegetables intake 

Your parents were right: Eat your fruits and veggies! These provide a variety of antioxidants, vitamins, minerals and dietary fiber — all things known to help prevent disease. If you have high blood pressure, a diet rich in fruits, vegetables and grains is especially recommended. 

Zumpano says to aim for a combined seven to nine servings of fruits and vegetables each day: roughly 4 or greater for vegetables and two to four for fruit. If you don’t reach recommended serving sizes in a given day, don’t worry. It’s more about what your overall diet looks like in a week, so just load up on veggies or fruits in the following days.  

One serving of fruit is equal to: 

• 1 medium-sized piece of fresh fruit. 
• 1/2 medium banana. 
• 1/2 grapefruit.  
• 1/4 cup dried fruit. 
• 1/2 cup canned fruit (avoid heavy syrup and instead choose fruit water or in own juice). 
• 4 ounces 100% fruit juice (avoid sweetened juice). 

One serving of vegetables is equal to: 

• 2 cups raw leafy salad greens. 
• 1 cup of cut-up veggies. 
• 1 cup 100% vegetable juice. 

How to increase fruits and vegetables in your diet 

• Buy pre-cut vegetables and fruit (fresh or frozen), and then bag them up for a snack or to add to a dish. 
• Have a vegetable-based soup or garden salad with light dressing with your usual sandwich at lunch. 
• Instead of a cookie, enjoy frozen banana slices topped with natural peanut butter and semi-sweet chocolate chips or frozen grapes dipped in 1 teaspoon of chocolate syrup. 
• Keep fresh fruit on your desk or workspace. 
• If you think you’ll be missing a meal, bring a homemade trail mix of your choice of 2 tablespoons dried fruit and 2 tablespoons roasted nuts and/or seeds along with you. 
• Make a fruit and veggie smoothie with produce that needs to be eaten quickly.

Eat a variety of fruits and vegetables 

Where fruits and veggies are concerned, variety is the spice of a healthy life. Choosing food in a rainbow of colors ensures you’ll ingest a diverse array of nutrients. Eat carrots and oranges; tomatoes, strawberries and raspberries; plums and eggplant; blueberries and blackberries: green grapes, celery, spinach and kiwi; and yellow peppers and bananas.  

Decrease saturated fats and trans fats

We all need fat in our diet, but not all fat is created equally. Trans fats and saturated fats are so-called bad fats. These raise your LDL (or bad) cholesterol, the kind that encourages plaque build-up in your arteries (that waxy substance). Red meat is high in saturated fat, as are certain kinds of cheese. 

A better choice is consuming good fats, or monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fats. You’ll find these in nuts, seeds, avocados, olives, flaxseed, soy and fatty fish.

Tips

• Prepare your food with cooking oils such as olive oil or avocado oil, both of which contain healthier fats. 
• Eat two to three meatless meals weekly — try split pea soup, garbanzo bean salad, bean-based meatless burgers or tofu stir-fry. 
• Eat two skinless poultry meals each week. 
• Limit red meat to no more than one meal per week. Choose the leanest cuts of meat possible with skin and visible fat removed. Where possible, replace red meat with seafood or skinless poultry. 
• Eat omega-3-rich fish at least two to three times per week This includes cold-water fish such as tuna, salmon, trout, sardines and herring.
• Include plant sources of omega 3 fatty acids — like chia seeds, ground flaxseeds, pumpkin seeds and hemp seeds — on a daily basis by adding to meals such as oatmeal, soup, yogurt, smoothies or salads. 

Substitute animal protein with plant protein 

Animal proteins are the kind of protein found in beef, pork, lamb, poultry and eggs, as well as cheeses and yogurt. Although the American Heart Association recommends you eat 5.5 ounces of protein per day, the kind of protein you eat matters.  

For example, animal protein often means you’re ingesting higher amounts of cholesterol and saturated fat— both of which contribute to weight gain and an increased risk of developing heart disease.  

Luckily, there’s a solution. In addition to eating more veggies, you should eat more plant-based proteins. These are proteins found in food such as legumes (dried beans, peas and lentils) nuts and seeds. The American Heart Association recommends you eat minimally 5 ounces of plant protein per week. 

An easy way to eat more plant-based protein is meatless meals. There are plenty of tasty recipes that provide good sources of protein but that also provide heart-friendly ingredients such as fiber, vitamins, minerals, and antioxidants.

One ounce of protein is equal to: 

Some of the ways alcohol affects our health are well known, but others may surprise you. Here are six less-known effects that alcohol has on your body, according to gastroenterologist K. V. Narayanan Menon, MD:

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1. Drinking gives your body work to do that keeps it from other processes. Once you take a drink, your body makes metabolizing it a priority — above processing anything else. Unlike proteins, carbohydrates and fats, your body doesn’t have a way to store alcohol, so it has to move to the front of the metabolizing line. This is why it affects your liver, as it’s your liver’s job to detoxify and remove alcohol from your blood.
2. Abusing alcohol causes bacteria to grow in your gut, which can eventually migrate through the intestinal wall and into the liver, leading to liver damage.
3. Too much is bad for your heart. It can cause the heart to become weak (cardiomyopathy) and have an irregular beat pattern (arrhythmias). It also puts people at higher risk for developing high blood pressure.
4. People can develop pancreatitis, or inflammation of the pancreas, from alcohol abuse.
5. Drinking too much puts you at risk for some cancers, such as cancer of the mouth, esophagus, throat, liver and breast.
6. It can affect your immune system. If you drink every day, or almost every day, you might notice that you catch colds, flu or other illnesses more frequently than people who don’t drink. This is because alcohol can weaken the immune system and make the body more susceptible to infections.

How your liver breaks down alcohol in your body

When you drink, here’s what happens in your liver, where alcohol metabolism takes place.

Your liver detoxifies and removes alcohol from the blood through a process known as oxidation. Once the liver finishes the process, alcohol becomes water and carbon dioxide. If alcohol accumulates in the system, it can destroy cells and, eventually, organs. Oxidative metabolism prevents this.

But when you’ve ingested too much alcohol for your liver to process in a timely manner, the toxic substance begins to take its toll on your body, starting with your liver. “The oxidative metabolism of alcohol generates molecules that inhibit fat oxidation in the liver and, subsequently, can lead to a condition known as fatty liver,” says Dr. Menon.

Fatty liver, early stage alcoholic liver disease, develops in about 90% of people who drink more than one and a half to two ounces of alcohol per day. So, if you drink that much or more on most days of the week, you probably have fatty liver. Continued alcohol use leads to liver fibrosis and, finally, cirrhosis.

The good news? Fatty liver is usually completely reversible in about four to six weeks if you completely abstain from drinking alcohol. Cirrhosis, on the other hand, is irreversible and likely to lead to liver failure despite abstinence from alcohol, according to Dr. Menon.

If you drink heavily, see your doctor immediately if you notice a yellow tinge to your skin, feel pain in the upper right portion of your abdomen or experience unexplained weight loss.