As a broadly applicable antihypertensive effective non-drug measures, various methods have also been shown in studies to be suitable for effective blood pressure reduction. The effectiveness of the method depends more than anything else on the cooperation of the patient and is therefore only after careful consideration of the actual options used alone. In older patients, for example the … changes are often difficult to practice, so that there are medications often unavoidable, whereas in obese or very young patients necessarily on physical activity and dietary changes should be urged to avoid drugs.
The most important criterion is the reduction in body weight, ideally in the normal range (BMI up to 25). Even a moderate reduction in body weight can lower blood pressure (approx. – 2 mmHg per kg of weight loss!).
The relationship between salt consumption and blood pressure level in a population can safely assume is true, but not all hypertensive patients. These studies lead to the conclusion that a reduction of the resulting sodium chloride intake to about 4-6 g / day (70-100mmaol) to a therapeutically useful blood pressure reductions and is therefore recommended. For the reduction of daily salt intake to about 6 g or 100 mmol following procedure is recommended: When self-cooking abandon principle in saline and used for another spice vegetable, dishes to salt at the table does not (this proportion is not, however, usually more than 10% of total consumption is) to prefer fresh or frozen foods over canned food to avoid salt-rich foods and basic foodstuffs such as Bread and milk products should be accounted for by means of tables.
Chronic alcohol abuse leads to increased blood pressure, as was demonstrated in several studies. By complete waiver or reduction amounts to less than 20 g / d can be normalized in 90% of patients with alcohol-related hypertension, blood pressure, even when all other forms of hypertension, the absence of alcohol has a positive effect on blood pressure values.
Cigarette smoking increases cardiovascular risk in mild and severe forms of high-pressure considerably, both in untreated and treated for hypertension patients. Although smoking has no direct effect of causing hypertension is to increase from the above reasons, the avoidance of cigarette smoking has a particularly effective way, the life expectancy of patients with hypertension.
It is further shown that by switching the diet to a diet rich in fruits and vegetables and reducing the fat content of the blood pressure is lowered significantly. Vegetarian diet is usually a low-sodium energy-reduced, potassium and fiber-rich diet with a variety of changes in vitamins and trace elements, and an increase in the proportion of polyunsaturated fatty acids. The polyunsaturated omega-3 fatty acids lead not only to reduce LDL cholesterol and to reduce elevated blood pressure values. This effect has been demonstrated both in the use of fish or vegetable oils, in which these fatty acids were enriched as well as appropriate diets. However, it is not possible to identify individual food components that are responsible for lowering blood pressure in a special way.
Further possibilities of non-pharmacological blood pressure lowering are physical training and psycho-physiologically based relaxation techniques and stress management. The antihypertensive effect of physical training, especially for pre-existing physical inactivity has been proven several times. It must be emphasized that even a moderate but continuous increase in the practice of physical activity for lowering blood pressure and may lead to less need for medication (Minimum: 3 x / week 30 minutes persevering training, such as walking, jogging or cycling). On the other hand, it was disclosed that the additional administration of antihypertensive drugs to physical training in mild hypertension, the blood pressure lowering does not increase significantly.
The individual … for each hypertension patients can be estimated by ergometric stress. As a rough rule of thumb is for the hypertension patients a training frequency of 180 recommended minus your age, where at the beginning of training, a gradual increase in stress level on the maximum load is strongly recommended (also to avoid overloading of the musculoskeletal system). When combined with blood pressure medication is taken into consideration that is reduced by beta-adrenergic blocking the stress-dependent increase in heart rate therefore included in determining the stress level must be (minus 10-20% in the submaximal range). Beta blockers are therefore to be avoided in combination with physical training sooner. Physiologically oriented psycho therapy: For processes such as breathing relaxation techniques, autogenic training and stress management programs has been demonstrated an antihypertensive effect against peer groups.