Despite its deadly implications, 14.4million people in the UK have high blood pressure, according to the British Heart Foundation. And out of these, nine million have been diagnosed by their GP. That number might be a lot lower if these nine million followed the advice of Doctor Sarah, a blood pressure specialist who spoke to Express.co.uk about ways to improve blood health. She revealed four nutrition-related changes to make.
Sensible sunbathing for vitamin D and nitric oxide
The owner of mylowerbloodpressure.com’s first piece of advice was sensible sunbathing.
Sunbathing, the doc shared, is a powerful source of Vitamin D and helps your body release Nitric Oxide, both of which help lower blood pressure.
“After exposing your skin to sunlight for twenty minutes, you produce enough nitric oxide to lower your blood pressure for at least one hour,” she explained.
Nitric oxide is known as a vasodilator, meaning that it relaxes the muscles in your blood vessels and opens them up more to increase blood flow.
“The heart health benefits of sunlight are likely to outweigh the risk of skin cancer,” the doc added.
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The overall effect of vitamin C improving heart health is available for the world to see in peer-reviewed studies.
One new study in Norfolk involving 19,000 adults aged 45 to 79 years old found that the more vitamin C people consumed the less likely they were to die from other causes over the four-year study period.
“The researchers concluded that even relatively small increases in vitamin C concentrations may have a measurable effect on risk of a fatal heart attack; for example, eating an orange a day was estimated to reduce the risk of coronary heart disease by as much as 10 percent,” explained Doctor Sarah.
Vitamin C is contained in citrus, strawberries, tomatoes, white potatoes and cruciferous vegetables such as cabbage and broccoli.
Lycopene
Perhaps the least recognisable item on the list, lycopene is a carotenoid – the chemical known for creating the red pigment in tomatoes.
Found in papaya, red grapefruit and watermelon, it is linked to lower thickness in the walls of your arteries, as well as lowering the level of oxidised LDL cholesterol, which is damaging for our blood vessels. Oxidised LDL cholesterol hardens the arteries – a process known as atherosclerosis.
Surprisingly, lycopene is difficult to retain from tomato because it is locked away inside the cells. However, doc Sarah explains that cooking tomatoes can release five times the amount compared to when eating them raw.
“Tomato ketchup and concentrated tomato purée are among the most common dietary sources. Lycopene even makes some pizzas a healthy option as the olive oil added to pizza sauce triples the amount of lycopene you can absorb,” explains the doctor.
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