WFPB but still have hypertension (high blood pressure)

[MonkeysMom]

My husband has been eating WFPB for years, runs an hour a day, has always maintained a normal weight. He has developed hypertension that we think is due to being on an SNRI for many years -- but going off of it is not an option.

He eats pretty much the same exact thing every day so I'll list his diet and the interventions we've tried thus far. He does not graze or snack. What dietary changes could we try to further reduce his BP? In particular I'm wondering if adding several more portions of high-nitrate veggies like cauliflower might help?

Breakfast: Shredded Wheat 'n' Bran w/1 c blueberries, 1/2 banana, & 1 c unsweetened almond milk / (2 days a week - vanilla soy milk, sweetened). Green tea (3 bags).

Lunch: 3-4 hummus sandwiches using Eziekels low-sodium bread & storebought hummus; 3 bananas. 2 Snackwells Devils Food cookies.

Supper: 1/4 box spaghetti, usually the kind w/added vegetable protein and/or fiber; 1 c low-sodium pasta sauce; 2 cups baby spinach (plain); 2 Snackwells devils food cookies and/or 2 Tbsp semi-sweet (dark) chocolate chips.

Dietary interventions we've tried:
- Changing dry cereal to oatmeal w/flax seed (no improvement after 1 month so discontinued).
- Changing pasta sauce to a homemade sauce w/no salt & added flax seed (no improvement after 1 month so discontinued).
- Adding 1000 mg/day garlic supplement (no improvement after 1 month so discontinued).
- Adding hibiscus tea each evening (improvement).
- Adding about 1/2 cup beet juice daily (improvement but after a while he just couldn't stomach it any more).

[Ejeff]

I would try stopping all the products with oil. The cookies, the pasta sauce, the store bought hummus, and the milk likely have oil added. For at least 60 days use only homemade marinara sauce and make your own hummus. Switch the snackwells with oatmeal banana cookies.

You could also try oats again for breakfast. Leave out the flax and add some riced cauliflower. You can make a quick homemade milk by blending a banana with water. If his sandwiches don’t include a lot of veggies he could try adding some veggies to that meal. Not sure if the bread has any added oil.

It would be interesting to see if eliminating all these hidden sources of oil/fat would help his BP.

Erin

[Mom+Me]

I agree with Ejeff. I don't mean to sound harsh, but your husband isn't really following a WFPB diet. Please look at this from SnackWell's website.

The 2nd, 3rd, and 4th ingredients are sugar. The 5th is hydrogenated oil. The 7th and 9th are oil (lecithin), and the 8th is gelatin (derived from boiled hooves). Nixing these cookies from his daily diet (often 2 times/day) should help with his overall health and his hypertension. Normally I'd think replacing the cookies with some fruit would be a nice option to help satisfy a sweet tooth, but your husband already is consuming quite a bit of fruit.

Is he getting enough starch (potatoes, corn, whole grains like rice, quinoa, etc., some lentils/beans)? Yes, unless the store bought hummus is Engine 2 from Whole Foods, some varieties of Oasis brand, or maybe others, all other store bought hummus contain oil and salt. It really is easy to make no-oil hummus at home.

Have you tried whole wheat pasta? Pasta that has vegetable protein added isn't needed nor recommended.

So, as I mentioned, this really isn't a WFPB diet and certainly not The McDougall Plan that your husband is following. As Ejeff pointed out, the pasta sauce more than likely contains oil, too. By making these little tweaks, they really can add up to helping your husband!

Also, I couldn't find whether or not it could contribute to elevated blood pressure, but the cereal he eats contains BHT. It is a chemical that may adversely affect him.

Thank you for asking your question and giving us so many details; that was great! Please ask any other questions you may have including help with recipes, etc..

[Growing a Pear]

Out of curiosity, what are his height and weight? How high is his blood pressure?

To be blunt, the overall diet isn't what I think of when I consider a whole foods plant-based diet. The majority of calories come from processed foods and include 5 grams of saturated fat from hydrogenated tropical oils from the Snackwells cookies on a daily basis. (You might care to read about tropical oils and why they're probably even worse than animal-based fats.) I have a sweet tooth, too, so I am sympathetic to the flavor profile, but there seems to be a larger amount of fruit than vegetables. I'd wonder if his trigylcerides and blood glucose are trend too high, which can also make his arteries twitchier than normal.

I'm also seeing an emphasis on adding in supplements designed to lower blood pressure rather than eliminating the processed foods that might be causing it to rise. (Think of Dr. Esselstyn's metaphor of how to solve thefts from a store by getting rid of the thieves rather than adding in more nuns.)

I'd recommend revisiting Jeff Novick's guidelines on what constitutes a healthy plant-based diet. This is an excellent place to start if you haven't read it already.

Here is a thread recently dealing with how to manage blood pressure by the resident nutritionist, Jeff Novick.

If your husband is at an ideal weight and went all in on a whole foods plant-based diet for the 2 months recommended above, that might be the best way to see if his BP is modifiable by diet. FWIW.

ETA: Too funny, Mom+Me. We were posting at the same time and I see have similar thoughts.

[Mom+Me]

LOL--Growing a Pear! You presented great ideas and resources.

One that I wanted to share but ran out of time to post is McDougall's Color Picture Book.