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27.10.22Does Fasting Lower Blood Pressure
How Fasting Affects Heart and Blood Pressure
Fasting is the process of not eating for a set period. This is done to allow the body to cleanse itself of toxins and other unnecessary materials. We can do it for different reasons, including purging, weight loss, detoxification and simply feeling better in general.
Fasting lowers blood pressure by reducing the food we eat and by stimulating our bodies to produce less salt in the blood. Other changes may occur in addition to these two factors, which may potentially lower blood pressure.
Why Does Fasting Lower Blood Pressure
Fasting reduces the number of stress hormones in your body, which can help prevent high blood pressure.
Fasting also increases the number of ketones produced by the liver. Ketones are another fuel source for the brain and other body organs. Ketones can lower blood sugar and help prevent type 2 diabetes.
Finally, fasting lowers blood pressure (bp) by reducing the amount of sodium in the body and by stimulating the production of renin, a hormone that increases the production of angiotensin-converting enzyme (ACE), which helps your kidneys excrete excess salt and water.
Fasting also causes a temporary rise in cortisol (the stress hormone), which may lead to a temporary increase in blood pressure.
Intermittent Fasting and Blood Pressure
If you’re looking for methods that can help you to lower your blood pressure, intermittent fasting may be the way to go.
The research is still new and not conclusive, but there’s good evidence that intermittent fasting can help with blood pressure control.
This may sound strange at first, but it’s quite common in many cultures around the world and has been used for centuries as a way to help manage weight loss, energy levels, and other health problems.
A study published in The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition in 2010 found that after six months, those who ate an intermittent fasting diet had lower blood pressure than those who didn’t. But the study also found that the people on the intermittent fasting diet had higher cortisol levels — a stress hormone.
“The health effects of intermittent fasting are mixed,” says Dr. Aviva Romm, a cardiologist from Harvard Medical School in Boston, Massachusetts. “Some studies have shown it to be beneficial, but others have not.”
How to Reduce Blood Pressure
Health experts recommend keeping your blood pressure under 140/90 mm Hg to help prevent cardiovascular disease and its related health problems, such as heart attack, stroke, and other cardiovascular issues. If you have high blood pressure — or if you’re concerned about it — it’s important to get it under control before it becomes a problem.
There are several ways to lower your blood pressure without taking any medication, including:
Weight loss: Being obese is one of the ways to increase your risk for high blood pressure because obesity puts an extra strain on your heart and arteries. You can lose weight by cutting back on unhealthy foods from your diet, getting more exercise, and increasing the amount of time you spend exercising each week.
Eating healthy foods: Cutting back on salt, fried foods, and sugary drinks can help lower your blood pressure naturally without medication. Aim for 500 milligrams of sodium (1 teaspoon) per day or less if possible; if this isn’t possible, try to limit yourself to 1,500 mg per day or less. Eating more fruits.
Fasting: Fasting is a great way to lower blood pressure. When you fast, your body will naturally increase the production of nitric oxide, which dilates blood vessels and lowers blood pressure.
If you are overweight, losing weight may also help you to lower your blood pressure. When you lose weight, it takes a lot less pressure on the heart because there is less mass pressing down on it.
The idea behind fasting is that when you don’t eat, your body uses more energy than normal to keep itself alive. This means that when you start eating again, your blood volume increases, and your blood pressure goes up because of the work being done by the heart to pump blood around the body. But after a while, when you’ve adapted to not eating for a while, your body starts using less energy and so there’s less work being done by the heart and less pressure on the blood vessels.
Fasting also lowers your levels of stress hormones such as cortisol and adrenaline which are both linked with increased blood pressure.
Conclusion
The good news is that fasting won’t have any harmful side effects. It appears as though your blood pressure can go down; this is a sign of improved cardiovascular health (at least over the short term).
The evidence is clear: fasting is an effective, safe method that allows patients to maintain healthy blood pressure levels.
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William is from Canada, he is passionate nutrition & wellness writer. William understands that the topic of wellness is still not well understood, so his goal is to enlighten and teach people how to live healthier and happier in their bodies.
