High blood pressure means the force of blood thrusting against your artery walls is consistently too high. When this happens, it forces your heart to work harder to pump blood around the body. Over time, this added exertion can hike your risk of having a heart attack.
The researchers found that home diastolic blood pressure reduced “significantly” during green leafy vegetable juice consumption over the course of a week.
“Beetroot juice and green leafy vegetable juice may reduce systolic or diastolic blood pressure but there was no statistically significant difference between the two juices, although this was only a pilot study,” the researchers concluded.
Systolic or diastolic – what do these numbers mean?
Blood pressure is recorded with two numbers.
The systolic pressure (higher number) is the force at which your heart pumps blood around your body.
How to get tested
High blood pressure does not usually have any symptoms, so the only way to find out if you have it is to get your blood pressure checked.
According to UK public health advice, healthy adults aged over 40 should have their blood pressure checked at least once every five years.
If you’re at an increased risk of high blood pressure, you should have your blood pressure checked more often, ideally once a year.
Having this done is easy and could save your life.