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These days many individuals in their Forties and Fifties are being told that they have high blood pressure and that unless they induce major lifestyle changes soon, then they will have to take blood pressure tablets for the rest of their lives. The fact is, that once your body gets used to these tablets it is extremely hard to get off them.

Therefore, if you have been given this warning, take it seriously. The doctor’s advice can take different forms, but it usually encompasses: lose weight; stop smoking and drinking; take more exercise and eat less salt.

In the spirit of this latter piece of advice, I have put three low salt soup recipes from three different countries in this piece. I hope you enjoy them.

Recipe One: Germany

Two Bean Soup (Zwei Bohnensuppe) (Serves Four)

1 1/4 cups white beans, dry 1 cup cut green beans 1 green onion, diced 1 potato, peeled & diced 2 tbls unbleached flour

Garnish =================== 4 oz ham, chopped 1/4 cup celery,chopped 1 onion, yellow, diced 1 tbls unsalted butter (optional) 3/4 cup beef broth, unsalted 1/4 tsp pepper 1 parsley, sprig

The beans can be either fresh or frozen, but do not use canned. Boil the beans until softish; add the potato and continue to boil. Add the flour to thicken when the potato is cooked. Stir well. Serve in bowls and then add the garnish. Crispy bread is a good accompaniment.

Recipe Two: Ireland

Sorrel Soup (Serves Eight)

1 lb Sorrel 3 oz unsalted butter (or margarine) 1 large onion, chopped 2 tbsp flour (heaped) 2 1/2 l stock 2 tbsp breadcrumbs 1 pepper 2 egg yolks 150 ml cream

Wash the sorrel well and chop it up. Heat the butter or margarine in a saucepan and just soften the sorrel and onion in it. Sprinkle the flour on to the vegetables and mix well. Let it cook for around 1 minute. In the meantime bring the stock to the boil, then add to the pan. Add the breadcrumbs, add pepper to taste, and bring to the boil, then simmer for about 1 hour covered. (It can become liquidized at this point, if liked). Whisk the egg yolks with the cream and add a little of the hot soup to the mixture, stirring well; then add gradually to the soup pot, stirring well on the heat, being careful not to let it boil.

Recipe Three: Russia

Borsch (Serves eight)

1 cup navy beans, dried 2 1/2 lb beef, lean 1/2 lb slab bacon 10 cups cold water 1 bay leaf 8 whole peppercorns 2 cloves garlic 2 tblsp parsley, dried 1 carrot 1 celery stalk 1 red onion, big, chopped 1 tsp salt (optional) 8 beetroots for soup 2 beetroots, small 2 cups green cabbage, shredded 2 leeks, big, sliced 3 potatoes, cut into eighths 1 can (1 lb 13 oz) tomatoes 1 tbspn tomato paste 3 tbspn red wine vinegar 1 lb kielbasa (optional) 2 tbspn flour 1 tbspn butter, melted 1/2 cup sour cream (optional)

Cover beans with water and permit to soak overnight; cook until tender; drain; set aside. Place beef, bacon and water in large soup pot; bring to the boil. Skim fat from surface. Add bay leaf, peppercorns, garlic, parsley, carrot, celery, onion. Cover and simmer on a low heat for around 1 1/2 hours.

Scrub beetroots for soup and cook in boiling water until soft, around 45 minutes; drain and dispose of water; cool. Peel and cut each beetroot into eighths. Scrub small beetroots; grate; cover with water and soak.

Remove meat from soup; lay aside. Strain soup into another pot and add cooked beetroot, cabbage, leeks, potatoes, tomatoes, tomato paste, vinegar, sugar, beef and bacon.

Bring to the boil and simmer for 45 minutes. Cut kielbasa into pieces and add with navy beans to soup. Simmer 20 minutes longer. Mix flour and butter together to form a paste. Stir into soup to thicken slightly. Strain raw beets, saving liquid yet discarding beetroots. Add beetroot liquid to soup.

Additional sugar or vinegar can be added for a sweeter or sourer flavour. Cut meat and place in individual soup bowls. Pour hot soup with vegetables on to meat. Garnish every serving with a spoonful of sour cream, if preferred.

Owen Jones, the author of this piece writes on a number of topics, but is currently involved with work on high blood pressure charts. If you want to know more or check out some great offers, please go to our website at High Blood Pressure Recipes.

The actual order that the numbers involved in a blood pressure reading are given is systolic over diastolic. The systolic pressure is higher, because it is the reading taken whilst the heart actually pumps or beats and the diastolic pressure is lower because it is taken whilst the heart sucks in a new quantity of blood to pump around.

There are rough figures that doctors quote as ‘standard’, yet there is no clear, definitive consensus what these numbers are. In the west, most authorities will say that any reading under 120/80 is good. However, there are numerous medical professionals who will say that 140/80 does not require treatment, other than to lose a few pounds, if you are over weight.

This makes it very problematic for the unqualified person to judge for him or herself, whether his or her blood pressure is satisfactory or not. Blood pressure monitors are very comforting, very accurate but not expensive nowadays, yet how can you interpret the data they give you, if not every medical expert has the same opinion?

Perhaps the only way to get the most sense of this data is to go along to your general practitioner with your blood pressure monitor and discuss its results with your doctor. Your doctor can use his or her sophisticated equipment and verify it with yours and your doctor can give you a couple of figures that can be expected for someone like you.

I say this because there are several items that can have an effect on blood pressure. In fact, actual blood pressure changes with each beat of the heart, so your blood pressure can be different each time you take it, which is why a BP monitor takes the average (or the maximum) over, say, a two minute period.

Factors that can (and often do) have an effect on blood pressure are:

The ‘White Coat Effect’: some individuals’ BP soars by as much as 25-50 points if they go into a doctor’s surgery. This could be anxiety or it could be fear of doctors, and it is a documented difficulty.

Mood: fear, anger, depression and anxiety can unsettle your blood pressure.

Age: your age has some sway on your BP.

Weather: the temperature and the humidity affects BP

Stress: stress, restlessness, lack of sleep and tiredness can have an effect on the levels of your blood pressure.

Diet: which foodstuffs and beverages you have recently consumed have an impact as do whether you are constipated or merely ‘full’.

Smoking: smoking and drinking alcohol affect blood pressure.

Exercise: your physical condition, your metabolism and the amount of exercise you take are also reasons.

Time of the Day: for all the above reasons and more, the time of the day that you take the reading has an impact, which is why it is a good idea to have your own blood pressure monitor at home. Then you can measure your BP at definite times of the day and compare the results with the expected levels of diastolic and systolic blood pressure given you by your medical doctor.

Owen Jones, the author of this piece writes on several of subjects, but is currently involved with work on high blood pressure charts. If you want to know more or check out some great offers, just go to our site at High Blood Pressure Recipes.

Putting on weight and doing less exercise is a characteristic pattern of life for middle-aged individuals of both sexes. Whilst we are young, our metabolisms can deal with most things we throw at it but we start our careers on the bottom rung and perhaps even have a young family to take care of. This all burns up our calories quite unsurprisingly.

However, as we become older our metabolism slows down; we may get a manager’s job and our kids leave home. This all has the result of calories being stockpiled on our waists and thighs. However, there are a few things that can be done about it, but it in essence boils down to taking more exercise and watching what we eat.

This usually has the effect of giving us hypertension, which is what most individuals call high blood pressure. The point of this piece is to offer some tips for dealing with high blood pressure. The fact is that if you do nothing about the condition, you will be taking medication for the remainder of your life.

That is OK, if you do not mind taking medication, yet most people would rather avoid taking medication each day.

So the first thing to do is moderate your weight to what it should be. If you do not know what this is, you will have to enquire of a dietitian or your GP. The handy thing about the majority of of the things you ought to do is that they are all connected with decent health.

For instance, if you are flabby, you require more exercise and more exercise will also help lower your blood pressure. Two birds with one stone!

It does not take a lot to make a huge difference, if you do nothing at all now. Walking for thirty minutes twice a day will make a colossal difference to your body if you do not walk anywhere now. Strolling will have a knock-on effect. It will make you lose weight, it will bring down your blood pressure and it will massage your internal organs naturally. Swimming works in a similar manner.

Reducing your consumption of salt is a good manner of losing weight, but you do have to seek professional advice on this subject because salt is a key part of the human diet. However, if you eat too much salt (normally by eating too much processed food), you can change the situation by using herbs and spices instead of salt to augment the flavour of your food.

Other facets of life that escalate blood pressure which do you no use at all anyway are smoking, drinking to excess regularly and allowing yourself to get stressed out. Curing these three habits will have the effect of decreasing your blood pressure.

Taking any of these tips for dealing with high blood pressure on board will improve your life and decrease your blood pressure, but you might need to perform all of them to get it down if you have a significant problem.

Owen Jones, the writer of this piece writes on several of topics, but is currently involved with work on high blood pressure charts. If you want to know more or check out some great offers, just go to our website at High Blood Pressure Recipes.

The percentage of the populace in the countries of the West that is suffering from hypertension (aka high blood pressure) is going up all the time. High blood pressure is also known as the ‘silent killer’, because there is no real notification that you have it, yet it can kill you stone dead all the same.

Whenever people say that they can feel their blood pressure rising, it is normally merely an idiom meaning that they are getting angry or excited. You cannot know that your blood pressure is high without measuring it.

So, how can you reduce your blood pressure or stop it from rising without resorting to the daily ingestion of tablets? Here are the top 10 causes of high blood pressure.

1] The first thing to do is lose weight if you are too fat. Only losing ten pounds can have quite a serious impact on your BP.

2] Smoking is a cause of high blood pressure, so you could chop that out.

3] Drinking alcohol to excess often also raises BP

4] A sedentary lifestyle or plain lack of exercise will not help either. If you cannot bring yourself to go to the gym, merely walk more. A walk of thirty minutes in the morning and in the evening will instigate a lot of difference.

5] Diet. It is important to eat a healthy diet, which will also help you lose weight. Cut out most junk foods; cut down on meats and greasy foods and eat more fruits and vegetables. Salt plays a big part in weight gain (through water retention) and is a key factor in hypertension. Decrease your sodium intake. (Junk foods have a high salt content).

6] Strive to be cheerful. Easier said than done in most cases, but endeavor to develop a positive attitude. Stress plays a big role in creating hypertension. Exercise is said to alleviate stress as is meditation and yoga. Try a few things and see what helps you.

7] Some illness and sleep disorders raise blood pressure as do some medications. Sleep disorders like sleep apnoea disrupt your sleep, preventing you from getting proper sleep, which increases BP as well. Sleep apnoea can be the result of being overweight, so you know how to deal with that, and if you think that medication is causing high BP, speak to your GP.

8] Age can be a factor but while there is nothing you can do about your age, you can strive to be a ‘young’ whatever you are. individuals over the age of 55 by and large start getting hypertension rather than younger people. You could endeavor to keep fit and optimistic. See exercise above.

9] Race is another aspect over which you have no control, but Africans and their descendants are more liable to hypertension. If you fit this profile, become aware that you are in danger so check your BP regularly.

10] Fear, anxiety and depression can all have negative influences on BP, so if any of these incapacitating conditions applies to you, seek help.

Owen Jones, the writer of this piece writes on several of topics, but is currently involved with work on high blood pressure charts. If you want to know more or check out some great offers, just go to our website at High Blood Pressure Recipes.

High blood pressure, which is also known medically as hypertension, is a state where the pressure of the blood coursing through your arteries is considerably higher than standard. Most medical practitioners will state that the beginning point for people over eighteen years of age is 120/80. However, there are causes that could render those numbers not normal. Age is one of them.

The first number is the systolic arterial blood pressure, which means that it is the pressure read when the heart contracts, beats or pumps out blood. The second number is when the heart sucks in blood, ready to pump it out again.

These figures are given in millimetres of mercury and are stated in mmHg. Higher readings of either of these numbers can indicate a problem. One thing to make clear here is that it is impossible to deduce or estimate the pressure of your blood without using either a sphygmomanometer ( the one your doctor uses in the surgery), which is the gold standard of blood pressure monitoring devices or a home blood monitoring machine.

Blood pressure can become affected by numerous things such as: time of the day, age, weight, height, mood, fitness, diet, degree of activity and stress, which may or may not be part of ‘white coat syndrome’ amongst others. ‘White coat syndrome’ is the anxiety experienced by some people while they have to be examined by a physician. This applies to children more than to any other age group.

Blood pressure also changes during the day, so in order to acquire an accurate reading, it is necessary to take several all at the same time of day. It is also prudent to wait 45 minutes after drinking caffeine or ten minutes after arriving before taking a reading.

So, what is standard? The real answer, although it is annoying, is that only a medical doctor can tell you, but for an adult, they say that it is 120/80, for an adolescent it is 110/70 and for an infant it is 80/45.

However, when measuring and evaluating the blood pressure of adolescents, you have to keep in mind that age, sex and height matter. Therefore, an adolescent is said to have high blood pressure if the blood pressure is over that of ninety percent of individuals of his/her age, gender and height.

The causes of hypertension are classified as primary or secondary. Primary means that it is all your body’s fault and secondary means that the cause is something else, say, medication. Hypertension can also be the result of race or other hereditary reasons. Males of African descent are especially at risk.

One of the items you can buy to keep you knowledgeable about your family’s blood pressure worries is a home blood pressure monitor. These devices are quite cheap and are very accurate, so buy an automatic digital monitor but take it to your doctor to be certain that it is accurate and ask for the readings that are pertinent to all the members of your family.

Owen Jones, the author of this piece writes on a number of subjects, but is currently involved with work on the cause of high blood pressure. If you want to know more or check out some great offers, just go to our website at High Blood Pressure Recipes.