If you have high blood pressure no doubt your doctor has already begin to pressure you to start taking a hypertension medication.
But with common side effects like weakness, cramps, fatigue and erection problems no one would blame you if you’ve been looking for some natural alternatives such as foods for high blood pressure.
We’ll I’ve got good news, sipping on some juice may help folks with borderline high blood pressure step right back out of the danger zone.
In fact, this common juice you can pick up at your local grocery store may even rival meds for effectiveness!
Cherry juice matched hypertension meds
British researchers from Northumbria University have discovered that drinking just two ounces of tart cherry juice can do as well at reducing blood pressure as prescription drugs do.
When that amount of Montmorency cherry juice was given to study participants suffering from early hypertension, their blood pressure dropped by 7 percent, compared to those who got a placebo.
Significantly slash stroke risk
And what makes these results especially important are previous findings that lowering blood pressure by just 5 to 6 percent can significantly cut the risk of stroke and coronary artery disease, according to the study published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition.
Those amazing benefits have to do with the plant compounds “and the positive impact they exert on vascular function,” said lead author Karen Keane. The presence of powerful antioxidants called phenolic acids in the juice is considered especially important in its ability to lower blood pressure.
The peak reduction was recorded during the three hours after the juice was consumed. And best of all, participants whose blood pressure levels were highest saw the biggest benefits.
But that’s not all cherries can do.
This bright red super-food is also:
1. Nutrient rich:
High in vitamin A, potassium and fiber.
2. A potent anti-inflammatory:
Studies have found consuming cherries and cherry juice to be very effective in treating gout and helping muscles recover after strenuous exercise.
3. A natural way to get more shut-eye:
If you’re having trouble sleeping, a glass of cherry juice taken twice a day for two weeks was found to increase the sleep time in older adults with insomnia by close to an hour and a half.
Other studies have also found that tart cherries can lower your risk of having a stroke too.
So if you’ve been wondering about foods for high blood pressure and want to stay healthy, it looks like life might just be a bowl of cherries after all – or a glass of cherry juice!
Jenny Thompson is the Director of the Health Sciences Institute and editor of the HSI e-Alert. Through HSI, she and her team uncover important health information and expose ridiculous health misinformation, most notably through the HSI e-Alert.
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It’s practically impossible to find pure tart cherry juice without added sugar as the pure one is very tart and unpleasant to the taste. If you even find one, it would cost you a lot of money. So we are better off wait until the season and buy them or go to an Orchard to pick them up ourselves. We usually go to Lehman’s Orchard in Niles, Michigan. It’s about 115 miles from where we live here in the North West suburb of Chicago.