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Lower Blood Pressure Naturally With Top L-Arginine Foods

Feeling like your high blood pressure won’t go down no matter what you do or how hard you try? It may be time to take a look at one of the least understood causes of hypertension and the easy way to deal with it that women often don’t know about.

Doctors recommend exercise, a stress-free life and a low sodium DASH diet to lower your blood pressure naturally. What if you do it all – relax, eat tasteless salt-less food and work out until you drop – and still cannot get off your hypertension medication?

It may be because one vital piece of the puzzle is missing.

Your blood vessels may not be flexible enough to regulate blood pressure properly.

Did you know that your blood pressure is primarily regulated not by arteries or veins, but by the smallest blood vessels called arterioles? They deliver blood to every part of your body to exchange oxygen, water, proteins and other substances with your tissues. If they can expand and contract as blood volume changes, your blood pressure will get adjusted to the level of activity you are engaged in. If their walls are stiff, your blood pressure raises when your heart starts pumping up more blood.

Flexibility of small arteries and arterioles is an important mechanism of systemic vascular resistance, which is one of the three proven causes of high blood pressure1.

How To Lower Blood Pressure Naturally

So if you can relax your arterioles and make them more flexible, your blood pressure will go down.

This is the principle many drugs, such as calcium channel blockers, exploit.

Mechanisms of this are still being researched. For example, scientists just reported the discovery of a protein in blood vessel walls of experimental rats that causes raised blood pressure when it functions improperly. It is called Kv7.4 and identified as a Potassium channel3.

There is, however, one proven way to regulate blood pressure effectively: make sure you get enough protein called L-Arginine. It relaxes blood vessels and helps lower blood pressure.

L-Arginine and Nitric Oxide To Lower Your Blood Pressure

How does L-Arginine works? In your body, L-Arginine is converted into Nitric Oxide, a gas that lowers blood pressure by relaxing your blood vessels2.

In 1998, a group of scientists got awarded a Nobel prize for discovering this connection between hypertension and nitric oxide. Nitric oxide was called “The New Hero of Human Biology” by the Psychology Today. Not only can it change blood flow by as much as 200%, it also helps to deliver glucose and adrenaline in the blood.

Nitric Oxide can prevent or cure erectile dysfunction in men and speed up muscle growth. These are significant benefits crucial to most men’s health and wellbeing. Ever since this was discovered, interest to Nitrc Oxide and L-Arginine among men has jumped through the roof. Most women, however, did not understand that main effect of Nitric Oxide is to lower blood pressure naturally.

Some people do a “smart move” and try L-Arginine and Nitric Oxide supplements. Doctors, however, are still researching safe doses, and warning about dire side effects including death in case of overdose.

The safest way to get enough Nitric Oxide is from your food.

Eat L-Arginine Foods That Increase Nitric Oxide

The only natural source of L-Arginine in your body is food you eat. And we are not talking about exotic goods. Beans, nuts, seafood, fruits and vegetables contain this critical component that can help you to get off your hypertension medication.

They do the job best because they also contain other elements that support the absorption of Nitric Oxide. They are safe because it is hard to overdose on them.

Top L-Arginine Foods

Here is a list of the top L-Arginine foods that you can add to your diet:

  • Sesame seeds
  • Soy products and soy protein
  • White beans
  • Seafood
  • Turkey
  • Egg whites
  • Fish

Other foods that help produce Nitric Oxide

  • Garlic
  • Walnuts
  • Cashews
  • Fruit and vegetables (notably, Pomegranate juice)

Unlike meats, fruit and veggies contain vitamins that increase Nitric Oxide production in the body.

Easy Healthy Recipe to Lower Blood Pressure

Only two minutes are required to whip up this low fat high calcium white
bean spread that lowers your blood pressure.
Ingredients:

  • 1 can white beans with liquid ( if you prefer to remove the liquid, replace
    with boiled water)
  • 1 marinated pepper
  • 5 cloves of baked garlic or 1 clove of fresh garlic
  • 2 tbsp Sesame tahini
  • Lemon juice to taste
  • Water or bullion to dilute to the consistency you like
  • Sea salt
  • Herbs (Italian seasoning, parsley, oregano, rosemary)This spread contains more than three elements producing Nitric oxide. It can be used as a dip should you decide to add more liquid.

Diets That Lower Blood Pressure

Eating foods that help produce Nitric Oxide every day for 14 days in a row can reduce blood pressure by as much as 10 mmHg. Among diets that recommend these foods are the DASH diet, Dr. McDougall’s diet and Dr. Ornish diet. All three have documented success rates and also help to lose weight and improve heart health.

Next time you have a choice between soft drink and pomegranate juice or fruit smoothie, you know what to choose to lower your blood pressure. A little bit of food that produces Nitric Oxide every day helps women fight hypertension and reduce chances to get heart attack and stroke.

Sources:

  1. R. Klabunde, PhD. Resistance to blood flow http://www.cvphysiology.com/Hemodynamics/H002.htm
  2. R.Klabunde, PhD. Endothelial mechanisms regulating blood flow http://www.cvphysiology.com/Blood%20Flow/BF010.htm
  3. http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2011-07/babs-ndt071111.php

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