U Hla Myint (Gandhama) - Disease and Food

High blood pressure and food

Your blood pressure is a vital indicator of heart health. There is no doubt that keeping it in a normal range can help prevent heart attacks and strokes. You can take over-the-counter medications. You can also find foods that have amazing properties that can help lower blood pressure.

Many studies have shown that foods are full of things that raise blood pressure and things that lower it. Eating a healthy diet to find a way to lower blood pressure, instead of or in conjunction with prescription drugs, is now the number one priority for almost all experts. Try diet first. Eating foods that can lower blood pressure has been around for a long time and is gaining increasing attention from mainstream (Western) medical practitioners.

Disease and Food Celery : An Ancient Medicine

Celery has been used in Asian cultures as a folk remedy to lower blood pressure since about 200 B.C., says William J. Elliott, a pharmacologist at the University of Chicago’s Pritzker School of Medicine. He recently isolated a blood pressure-lowering agent in celery. Dr. Elliott was inspired to study celery by a Vietnamese undergraduate student. He told me how a traditional Asian doctor had successfully treated his father’s high blood pressure by prescribing celery. After his father, Min Li (age 62), ate two stalks of celery a day for a week, his blood pressure dropped from a high of 158/96 to a normal 118/82.

Dr. Elliott extracted a potent compound from celery and fed it to rats with normal blood pressure. After feeding it for two weeks, the rats' blood pressure dropped by an average of 12 to 14 percent. The dose was equivalent to eating four stalks of celery a day. The rats' blood cholesterol levels also dropped by a factor of 14. The compound that lowered blood pressure was 3.n.butyl phthalide, which is what gives celery its smell.

What makes celery unique is that it contains high levels of a compound that has the ability to lower blood pressure. No other vegetable has this effect. Dr. Elliott believes that celery lowers blood pressure by reducing stress hormones in the blood, which constrict blood vessels. The doctor suggests that celery may be most effective in people with high blood pressure that is related to mental stress. Nearly half of all Americans have this type of hypertension.

Note: Celery is high in sodium compared to other vegetables, but a medium-sized stalk of celery contains only 35 milligrams of sodium. So eating 2 stalks would only add 70 milligrams of sodium to your daily intake, which is a negligible amount.

Garlic : The most important benefits of garlic

Eat more garlic. This is another popular folk remedy for high blood pressure. Recent studies have shown that it is effective. Garlic, which has been used in China since ancient times and is now widely used as a blood pressure medicine in Germany, has a surprising effect. A German study of a ready-to-use garlic preparation called Kwai, which is available without a prescription, was found to lower blood pressure in patients with moderate hypertension. The dosage is the equivalent of two (2) cloves of garlic per day.

People in the garlic group saw their blood pressure drop from an average of 171/102 to 152/89 after three months. Those in the placebo group showed no change in blood pressure. Interestingly, the effect of garlic became stronger over the course of the study. This suggests that there is an accumulating effect of daily garlic consumption.

Garlic appears to lower blood pressure in part by relaxing the smooth muscles in blood vessels, which dilates the blood vessels. This is also the case in animals fed garlic juice.

Both garlic and onions are rich in a compound called adenosine. This compound is a smooth muscle relaxant. This means that eating onions can also lower blood pressure. In addition, onions contain small amounts of prostaglandins A 1 and E, which have blood pressure-lowering properties . Note: Both raw and cooked garlic and onions are beneficial for high blood pressure. However, raw garlic is believed to be more potent.

Important for high blood pressure: "Potassium" and "Sodium"

Potassium​

Don't overlook potassium, which is found in abundance in fruits, vegetables, and seafood. It has powerful