Sparkpeople Diet For High Blood Pressure

Customize Your SparkPeople Diet for High Blood Pressure.

SparkPeople.com started off as a general goal setting website but the founders quickly noticed that majority of the goals set by their users were related to nutrition, fitness and overall health. From there, the site transitioned into an ad-supported tool that teaches members how to achieve and maintain a healthier lifestyle.

SparkPeople has also partnered with the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute to offer their Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension (DASH) food plan, a diet for high blood pressure. High blood pressure, also known as hypertension, increases an individual's risk of coronary heart disease, heart attack and stroke. This is especially true when combined with other risk factors, such as obesity, heavy alcohol consumption and birth control pills. While anyone can suffer from high blood pressure, it is most common in those over 35 and has also been known to run in families. The combination of SparkPeople's tools and the DASH food plan provides one straight forward diet for high blood pressure, obesity, osteoporosis and more. It emphasizes reducing salt intake, cutting calories and limiting sweets, fats and red meat. The plan also encourages the consumption of fish, whole grains, fruits, vegetables and low-fat dairy.

Other online diet plans, such as Weight Watchers and eDiets.com, charge their members for tools similar to those offered for free by SparkPeople. Additionally, most sites only focus on lowering the amount of salt found in meals while DASH encourages followers to eat other foods that are known to lower blood pressure. SparkPeople's plan also allows the user to customize the diet for high blood pressure with any other food preferences, such as vegetarian, low cholesterol or pork free. In addition to their online tools, SparkPeople offers all the features of a social networking website. Users can communicate with others via forums, blogs and private messaging on a variety of topics.