How to Eat for Healthy Blood Pressure Without Giving Up Flavor

[upbeat music] [air whooshing] Now, what the heck is blood pressure anyways? Is it like tire pressure, water pressure, atmospheric pressure? Why are there two numbers? Let's learn a little physiology, shall we? I want you to think of your circulatory system as having three components that work together.

There's the pump.

That's your heart.

There's a system of flexible tubes.

That's your blood vessels.

And there's a certain amount of fluid in those tubes.

That's your blood.

Blood pressure is simply the force that your blood exerts against the walls of those blood vessels as it moves through the system.

When the nurse tells you that your blood pressure is, say, 120 over 70, they're measuring that pressure at two different points in the heartbeat cycle.

The top number, that's called the systolic pressure, is the pressure when the heart contracts and actively pumps the blood through your arteries, and the bottom number, called the diastolic pressure, is the pressure between beats when your heart relaxes and refills with blood.

Even though the heart is resting between beats, don't worry, your blood pressure does not fall to zero.

That's a good thing because, you know, we would die.

The reason it doesn't fall to zero is because the arteries are elastic, and they can continue to help moving your blood forward through your body.

So what are some of the factors that can affect your blood pressure? Like every other critical system in your body responsible for keeping you alive, your blood pressure is tightly regulated by a very complex system of checks and balances.

I'm not gonna bore you by giving you the full list, but here's just a few of the more common things that have an impact.

Now, remember those three components of the circulatory system, so anything that affects one or more of them is gonna naturally drive your pressure up or down.

Number one, how hard is your pump working? If your heart pumps harder and faster, your pressure's gonna rise.

On the other hand, if your heart muscle is weakened and it can't pump effectively, your pressure's gonna drop.

That's what happens with congestive heart failure.

Number two, how much fluid is in the system? More fluid inside the blood vessels generally means higher pressure, and less fluid is gonna mean lower pressure, and that's why severe dehydration or blood loss can cause your blood pressure to plummet to dangerous levels.

Number three, how wide or narrow are your blood vessels? So if the vessels become narrower, as with, say, cholesterol plaque buildup, your pressure's gonna rise.

If they relax and widen, as is seen with septic shock, your pressure's gonna fall.

Many of the most common antihypertensive medications work by helping your blood vessels relax and bringing your blood pressure down.

What are some other factors that might affect these three components of the system? I'm sure we're all aware that stress can be a factor, whether it's acute or chronic.

It affects the ability of the blood vessels to relax.