Handful of raisins lower blood pressure to safe levels

Today's E-News from 'What Doctors Don't Tell You' includes this free article on research showing that eating raisins may lower blood pressure. Whilst this may be an easy diet adaptation for some with high blood pressure it should not be the the answer for everyone. If you are overweight, have a problem with blood sugar balance, or need to avoid sweet foods while bringing gut-yeast under control, you would need to seek nutritional advice on alternative methods to support correct blood pressure.

As always, you should seek medical advice for any health concerns. Please note, if you are trying any natural method of lowering blood pressure alongside medication to address blood pressure, you should have monthly checks with your GP to ensure that your BP doesn't fall to low.

If you have slightly raised blood pressure (prehypertension), don’t turn to a drug – snack on some raisins every day to lower it. Eating a handful three times a day has a dramatic effect, and can normalise your levels.

Although people seem to know that raisins are good for hypertension, nobody actually had got round to proving it. So researchers from the Louisville Metabolic and Atherosclerosis Research Center (L-Marc) decided to do just that.

They monitored the blood pressure of 46 men and women who were prehypertensive and tested the effects of raisins, other fruits and vegetables, and typical snacks such as biscuits and crackers over a 12-week period.
The raisin snacks lowered systolic and diastolic blood pressure by up to 7 per cent, while the other snacks didn’t have any effect.

The researchers believe the potassium in raisins is the active agent that is helping prehypertensives get their blood pressure back into the safe range. Prehypertension is defined as a systolic pressure range from 120 to 139 mm Hg and diastolic pressure from 80 to 89 mm Hg.

(Source: 61st meeting of the American College of Cardiology annual scientific session, March 26, 2012).

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