Source of this article: Hong Zhongxin, Ding Bingjie, Balanced diet is the cornerstone of prevention and treatment of essential hypertension [J]. China General Medicine, 2017,20 (3): 283-289. Hypertension is the most common chronic disease, and its main complications include stroke, myocardial infarction, heart failure and chronic kidney disease, etc. Practice has proved that essential hypertension is a disease that can be prevented and controlled, and lowering blood pressure can obviously reduce the occurrence of complications. The treatment of hypertension mainly includes drug therapy, lifestyle and dietary intervention, but in the past, it seems that the diet of patients with hypertension is only limited by salt. In fact, the relationship between diet and hypertension is far more than that. With the deepening of research, more and more evidence shows that hypertension is essentially a low-grade inflammatory reaction. The unbalanced dietary pattern contains a lot of ingredients that promote this inflammatory response and/or lacks ingredients that resist this inflammatory response. If the dietary pattern is not adjusted, it may be difficult to obtain a good hypertension control rate by relying solely on drugs. Unbalanced dietary pattern can lead to hypertension, while balanced dietary pattern can prevent and treat hypertension. Unbalanced dietary pattern is one of the risk factors of essential hypertension in China. The level of productivity development in China is unbalanced, and there are great differences between urban and rural areas, but they are all unbalanced dietary patterns. Rural residents' diet is mainly white rice noodles with pickles, lacking vegetables, fruits and protein foods; In addition to polished rice and flour, urban residents' fat intake exceeds the standard, their diet pattern is westernized, and their intake of red meat and eggs is too high, resulting in excessive energy intake. The former has too much sodium intake and lacks nutrients such as protein, taurine, calcium, magnesium and phosphorus, while the latter has too much trans fatty acid, saturated fat, cholesterol and refined sugar. These unbalanced dietary patterns lead to excessive or insufficient nutrient intake, and some nutrients involved, such as sodium, potassium, fat and protein, are related to essential hypertension. High sodium diet High sodium diet is an internationally recognized risk factor for hypertension. For salt-sensitive individuals, the mechanism of high blood pressure caused by excessive sodium intake mainly includes: impaired renal sodium excretion function and excitement of renal sympathetic nervous system. In addition to raising blood pressure, excessive sodium intake will also bring about multiple system damage, including left ventricular hypertrophy, ventricular fibrosis, oxidative stress, intravascular dermatitis damage, and aggravate atherosclerosis. Low-potassium diet, like sodium, potassium is also an important nutrient to maintain the balance of water and electrolyte in the body. The mechanism of potassium lowering blood pressure mainly involves inhibiting sodium reabsorption, reducing sodium-induced sympathetic nerve excitability, promoting endothelial cells to release nitric oxide, and directly dilating blood vessels. Protein protein is also one of the productive nutrients, but the appropriate intake of protein has more significance for health. Protein is an important component in constructing and repairing human tissues, and participates in regulating physiological functions. China Dietary Guidelines recommend that residents' protein intake accounts for 10%- 12% of total energy, and animal protein: plant protein = 1: 1. Appropriate intake of protein may be beneficial to lowering blood pressure and reducing cardiovascular events. Vitamin B family Vitamin B family is the general name of a large class of water-soluble vitamins, which cannot be synthesized by human body and must be taken from food, including vitamin B 1, vitamin B2, vitamin B6, vitamin B 12, nicotinic acid, pantothenic acid, biotin and folic acid. They are indispensable substances for promoting metabolism in the body and converting sugar, fat and protein into heat, and can also help maintain the heart. Vitamin B is widely found in rice bran, bran, yeast, animal liver, lean meat, nuts, beans, vegetables and fruits. Balanced dietary pattern can ensure adequate intake of vitamin B to prevent and treat hypertension and other metabolic diseases. Effective dietary patterns for prevention and treatment of hypertension At present, popular dietary patterns, such as DASH diet and Mediterranean diet, have been proved to have a good effect on lowering blood pressure. The reason is that both of them emphasize the diversification of diet, belong to the category of balanced diet, and contain many anti-inflammatory and antioxidant nutrients with antihypertensive effect. DASH diet DASH diet is a diet developed from a large-scale hypertension prevention and control program in the United States in 1995. It emphasizes the intake of whole grains, vegetables, fruits and low-fat milk, and reduces the intake of foods rich in sodium, red meat, saturated fat, cholesterol and trans fatty acids. The plan found that after 8 weeks of adhering to this diet, the systolic blood pressure and diastolic blood pressure of hypertensive patients decreased by 55mmhg and 30mmhg respectively. After that, repeated studies were carried out in various countries, and the results confirmed that DASH diet had the effect of lowering blood pressure in most individuals. DASH diet is often used as a dietary pattern to prevent and control hypertension, and it is recommended by hypertension guides in many countries. From the nutritional point of view, DASH diet has the characteristics of low fat, low cholesterol, low sodium, high calcium, high potassium, high magnesium and high dietary fiber. At the same time, due to a large number of whole grains, vegetables and fruits, phytochemicals are ingested more. Mediterranean diet Mediterranean diet generally refers to the diet of vegetables, fruits, fish, whole grains, beans and olive oil in southern European countries along the Mediterranean coast such as Greece, Spain, France and southern Italy. Many studies have shown that the Mediterranean diet can reduce the risk of heart disease, stroke and cognitive impairment (such as Alzheimer's disease). At the same time, more and more studies have confirmed that the Mediterranean diet can lower blood pressure. The nutritional characteristics of this dietary pattern are: it is rich in monounsaturated fatty acids and dietary fiber, and the content of saturated fat is low; It is rich in antioxidants, phytochemicals and minerals such as calcium, phosphorus and magnesium. Mediterranean diet is mainly plant-derived food, which contains a lot of grains, vegetables and fruits. It is similar to the traditional dietary pattern in China. Chinese residents can learn from the advantages of Mediterranean diet to make up for the shortcomings and form a balanced dietary pattern that is more suitable for China's national conditions. China Balanced Diet In 20 16, China Nutrition Society revised the Dietary Guide for China residents for the third time, and clearly gave the latest visual figure of balanced diet-the Balanced Diet Pagoda. As can be seen from the latest dietary guidelines, China's balanced diet covers most of the characteristics of DASH diet and Mediterranean diet, emphasizing diversified diets, with whole grains, potatoes and miscellaneous beans as staple foods, a large number of vegetables and fruits, and a proper amount of fish, poultry, eggs and lean meat. According to China's national conditions, it is difficult to copy foreign dietary patterns to prevent hypertension, especially in rural areas. Therefore, based on China's balanced diet model, it may be more suitable for China to adjust the dietary characteristics of rural and urban residents and form a balanced diet model according to local conditions. For example, in rural areas, in addition to increasing whole grains, we can guide them to increase their intake of soybeans and dried fruits, so as to increase their intake of protein, minerals and dietary fiber; For urban people, on the basis of increasing whole grains, the intake of foods rich in saturated fatty acids and trans fatty acids should be reduced, and the intake of western fast food, red meat and eggs should be restricted to reduce the intake of fat, free sugar, trans fatty acids and cholesterol in the diet. China Residents' Balanced Diet Pagoda (20 16) Image Source: China Residents' Dietary Guide Core Recommendation Image Source: China Residents' Dietary Guide Disclaimer: The above content comes from the Internet, and the copyright belongs to the original author. 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