Blood Pressure Risk: Salt or Sugar

CASSIE: Welcome to Dishing Up Nutrition. This show is brought to you by Nutritional Weight and Wellness. My name is Cassie Weness. I've been a registered and licensed dietitian for the past 24 years. Of those 24 years, I've been here with Nutritional Weight and Wellness for about 15, maybe 15 and a half. And I can honestly say of the variety of different organizations I've worked for within my career as a dietitian, this is my favorite nutrition company, partly because I work, get to work with really fun, great people, one of whom is in the studio with me today. I'll introduce her in just a bit.

But also because I get to do what I love to do. I get to host this Dishing Up Nutrition radio program. I get to teach corporate lunch and learn classes and I still have time to be a full-time mom. So I really, I really do get to do everything I love to do. Long time listeners I'm sure know that I have two teenagers at home now; hard to believe they're teenagers already. And both of them have celiac disease.

So they avoid gluten 100%. I myself have a non-celiac gluten sensitivity. So I'm basically on the same diet as them. And I truly enjoy getting in the kitchen and cooking up delicious gluten free food, real food for my family. So if you are someone wondering whether or not your health problems might be coming from gluten, or maybe you've recently went gluten free, but you're struggling when it comes to grocery shopping or meal prep or family gatherings, I want to let you know that we have a great online class. It's a prerecorded class that you can take whenever it's convenient for you, whether it's from the comfort of your own home or, or wherever is convenient for you. It's called going Gluten-Free the Healthy Way. You can find it at weightandwellness.com. Just click on classes. It's only $25. So it's a great deal. And I will share some tips, some tricks and some delicious recipes.

 Check out the Gluten-Free Class

So I just wanted to let you know about that. And now let's bring it back to today and who is in studio with me today. Joining me today is Carolyn Hudson. Carolyn is also a registered and licensed dietitian. She has about 40 years of experience in a variety of different work settings. And I had heard, Carolyn, that you retired. So I was pleasantly surprised when I found out I was doing radio with you. The boss must have coaxed you out of retirement.

CAROLYN: Well, not completely. I don't see clients anymore in, in, you know, the offices, but I do, I love doing the radio show. So I told Dar absolutely. You know, when you need someone extra, give me a call. I’ll see if I'm around and more than willing to do it.

CASSIE: Wonderful.

CAROLYN: And I also help teach some of the corporate classes.

CASSIE: Oh, good. You're not totally gone.

CAROLYN: I'm not totally gone. I mean, I love doing this. So if it fits into my schedule, you know.

CASSIE: Good.

CAROLYN: So I've been, you know, loving retirement, you know, I have two granddaughters, so that's been really fun and I've been doing some gardening and I can't wait for my first tomatoes.

CASSIE: Tomatoes. I'm waiting too. I keep checking.

CAROLYN: Yes. So anyway, I'm…

CASSIE: So you're keeping busy.

CAROLYN: I'm oh, I'm…

CASSIE: You always do.

CAROLYN: I don’t how I worked to tell, tell you the truth, Cassie.

CASSIE: Well, that's probably why you look so young. I couldn't believe when I heard you had retired cause you don't look retirement age.

CAROLYN: Thank you.

CASSIE: You, you stay active doing things that you enjoy and that I think that helps.

CAROLYN: Definitely.

CASSIE: Well today I'm sure listeners are wondering, what is your topic today? Today, we're going to be talking all about blood pressure and more specifically we're going to be discussing is too much salt in your diet the major cause of high blood pressure or is eating too much sugar or processed carbohydrates your biggest risk factor? Is it salt or is it sugar? What is really causing your high blood pressure? Or maybe you don't have high blood pressure, but maybe someone in your family does.

CAROLYN: Mm-Hmm yeah, yeah. Obviously we know a lot of people with high blood pressure, especially a lot of our clients. And I think about in people in my family, you know, my dad used to take blood pressure medication and I think my mom just started taking it. She's 94.

CASSIE: Well at 94, let her take it. Right?

CAROLYN: Right, exactly. But Cassie, before we start on our topic today, I just wanted to put a plug in for this new feature we just started exclusively for our Dishing Up Nutrition listeners. We want to invite all of our listeners to join us in our very special private Facebook group. You know, this again, is a private group for Dishing Up, it's on Dishing Up Nutrition Facebook. So and we just set it up a couple weeks ago.

 Join the Facebook group!

CASSIE: I, I just heard about it maybe about a week ago. So yeah, it's brand new. It is really, I'm excited about it. It's a perfect place to let us know what topics you'd like us to talk about on this radio show. It's also a perfect place if you have nutrition questions. Get them answered on this private Facebook page.

CAROLYN: So we all know the past two years with the pandemic, it's been really tough and we could all use some inspiration here, or maybe it's just even a new recipe to get us through the day on our real food journey. We plan to provide this extra help with this private Dishing Up Nutrition Facebook group. So that's just one thing, you know.

CASSIE: One of many things that will take place on this private Facebook page. And hopefully a lot of listeners are saying, okay, tell me how I join already. So super simple, just type into that search bar: facebook.com/groups/dishingupnutrition, and then you click sign up. And I don't think we mentioned yet Carolyn, but it's free.

CAROLYN: Yeah, that's great.

CASSIE: You can't beat that. And you know, Dishing Up Nutrition has been on the air for the past 18 years. Can you believe that?

CAROLYN: 18 years. Wow.

CASSIE: Every Saturday morning for 18 years. And so it goes without saying we've discussed a lot of different topics over those years, but maybe there's a topic that you'd love to learn more about that we haven't covered yet. Let us know. We'd love to know what you want to hear.

CAROLYN: Yeah. You know I, I actually was on the Facebook group this morning and was looking at one of the things, one of the questions that came up on there. And I think it kind of really relates to our topic today. So I wanted to share what one listener wrote in and then what the response was from our registered dietitian. So, this is what she said: “I have listened to the podcast several times on hidden sugar. I learned something new each time. What are your thoughts on homemade bread? Do we…”

CASSIE: Oh, no.

CAROLYN: “We do not eat any store-bought bread. My husband actually bakes sourdough and white wheat bread. No sugar is added in the recipe. So where does this fall into hidden sugar? That's a really good question.

CASSIE: It's a really good question. I mean…

CAROLYN: Cause people at first don't think bread, sugar. They know bread is a carb, but then they don't think about it as sugar.

CASSIE: It doesn't right. But we, we know that flour turns to sugar.

CAROLYN: Is a carb that turns into sugar in your body. Right.

CASSIE: So the answer: did Teresa answer?

CAROLYN: Teresa Wagner answered. And she said, “Just the total carb of the bread, which you would get from the total amount of carbs in the recipe. And then you divide that by the number of slices in the loaf.” So again, it's just equating carbs or sugar in your body. So, so that is…

CASSIE: That's a great place to get, cause how else would you get that question answered? And here you can just…

CAROLYN: Type it in.

CASSIE: Yeah; sit down at your yeah, right in your own house, sit down at your computer and, and get a, a question answered from a, you know, professional in the nutrition world. So I love this. I'm going to have to get on there. I bet I'll learn some things even. Right?

CAROLYN: Right. Exactly.

CASSIE: So again, to go to, or excuse me to sign up, just go to facebook.com/groups/dishingupnutrition.

CAROLYN: Great. Great. Thanks for that information, Cassie. Now we better get to our topic.

CASSIE: Right.

CAROLYN: So is salt or sugar the biggest risk factor for developing high blood pressure? I'm sure if you have high blood pressure, you have been cautioned about how much salt or sodium you use. Generally, people are instructed to reduce the amount of salt they are consuming, but very seldom; I would actually say probably never are they told to cut back on sugar. Yeah, I've I don't think I saw any clients that were ever told that.

So and cut back on sugar because you need to cut back on those processed carbs and reduce those processed carbs. Right? As nutritionists, we believe it's really necessary to limit the amount of sodium, but it's also important to reduce sugar and those processed carbs in your diet in order to lower that blood pressure.

CASSIE: Right. And in fact, many of the studies looking at the role salt plays in high blood pressure show a very slight reduction in blood pressure at best when salt intake is reduced. So there must be more to this puzzle for most people, right? And we are going to continue talking about the missing pieces to that puzzle when we get back from break. You're listening to Dishing Up Nutrition.

If you're just tuning in, today Carolyn and I are discussing whether or not too much salt is the major cause of high blood pressure or is it eating too much sugar that's the biggest risk factor? What is really causing your high blood pressure? The true answer probably isn't exactly what you've been told in years past. So stay with us and we'll reveal more on this topic when we get back from break.

BREAK

CAROLYN: Well, welcome back to Dishing Up Nutrition. Today we're discussing what is the real cause of high blood pressure. Is it salt or sugar? Maybe it's a little more complicated than that.

CASSIE: Yeah, yeah. It probably even a little more complicated than that, but I think those are two big areas we need to continue to dissect and probably some listeners have already heard this statistic before, but I just want to remind everybody cardiovascular disease is the number one cause of death in the United States. And listen up to this next sentence I'm going to share with you: hypertension, which is just ongoing high blood pressure, is implicated as the primary cause of that cardiovascular disease.

So doesn't it make sense that we want to control the high blood pressure? Which, you know, I mean, it makes sense that high blood pressure has been a major focus of public health initiatives for some time now. And maybe you've noticed that. Maybe you've seen ads on TV or in print talking about, very often they talk about cutting back on salt to lower blood pressure, or maybe you've been given a pamphlet from your medical clinic talking about reducing salt intake to avoid high blood pressure. But from anything I've seen, any of these initiatives, any of this information that's being disseminated is void of information about the role that sugar and processed carbs can play in high blood pressure.

And probably this is new information for some of our listeners that sugar and processed carbs can be a culprit. I know both Carolyn and I have seen time and again in clinical practice and probably a lot of conventional healthcare practitioners would agree if you can just get back in the kitchen at least several days out of the week and cook some real food at home, even if you add a little salt in your cooking or add a little salt at the dinner table, when you're eating real food that's cooked at home, salt usually isn't the problem.

CAROLYN: No, it's not the salt shaker.

Processed food is problematic for blood pressure

 

CASSIE: No. It's the processed food. It's the food you're getting at the fast food restaurant. It's the frozen pizza. It's the potato chips. These can definitely be major sources of high blood pressure.

CAROLYN: Mm-Hmm. And I, I wanted to kind of go back: the high blood pressure, like you could be in your doctor's office and, and have high blood pressure when you go in there, you know, you're stressed out.

CASSIE: Maybe you’re nervous, stressed out and, and maybe you were running late and yeah, came in hot and yeah.

CAROLYN: Well that wouldn't classify as hypertension.

CASSIE: Good point.

CAROLYN: It would have to be kind of ongoing. So I know personally I've been at the doctor's office and mine was a little bit of high blood pressure when I got in there. And they'll say, well, we'll take it later, you know, at the end of the appointment,

CASSIE: Because you usually don't.

CAROLYN: Right. Exactly, exactly. You know, it always comes down. But so that wouldn't qualify. But if I went in, let's say two or three or four times, and they recorded high blood pressure, then I think my doctor would start saying, hmm, this is a problem. And so it's not just once. It's ongoing.

CASSIE: Right. And that's when they call it hypertension when it's ongoing.

CAROLYN: Right, exactly.

CASSIE: Good definitions there.

Restaurant meals and frozen meals tend to be higher in sodium

 

CAROLYN: So recently research from NIH, the National Institute of Health found that 90% of the people with high blood pressure underestimated the amount of salt or sodium in their restaurant meals or you know, their frozen meals; any of that stuff. So this study also found that U.S. adults and adolescents consume 25% of their sodium from those restaurant foods. So, and that could be fast food. That could be a sit down restaurant. It really doesn't matter. The recognition of the health consequences of a high sodium intake and the high level of sodium in restaurant foods led to in like 2015, the New York Board of Health actually issued a mandate requiring all restaurants to place warning labels on items that had over 2300 milligrams of sodium.

CASSIE: And to put that into perspective cause to some people maybe that means nothing, but the American Heart Association recommends that you consume no more than 2300 milligrams of sodium in an entire day. And here in New York, the restaurant has to call out the, the meals. So one meal.

CAROLYN: One meal is over that.

CASSIE: Yeah. Yeah. So that was really interesting. So those warning labels certainly increased people's knowledge of how much sodium is in their meal, but it didn't actually change what those consumers were doing, what they were ordering. So no, you know, sadly the new warnings really didn't change the behavior of the customers. They're going to eat what they're going to eat, I guess.

CASSIE: Yeah. You know, it was a good try, but maybe rather than spelling out the amount of salt in restaurant items, we should spend money on programs that help educate the public on how to cook some tasty fast meals in your kitchen.

CAROLYN: Mm-Hmm. Yeah.

CASSIE: Cause yeah, by the time you're at the restaurant, you're probably just going to order what you want, like you said. You know, I'm betting that by this point, some of our listeners might be thinking, how does this even happen? How does eating salt or sodium cause my blood pressure to rise? So I just want to share sort of my short biochemistry lesson that that'll help to answer that.

How does excess sodium intake cause blood pressure to rise?

 

So normally if you eat too much salt at one sitting or in any given day, the kidneys pass it into your urine and you simply pee it out; no big deal. But when our salt consumption levels are really high and when this continues day in and day out, the kidneys might not be able to keep up.

So now too much salt starts sticking around in the body. So then what happens is the extra salt attracts water to try to balance the concentration, to try to dilute that salt, right? So when there's too much salt in the blood, the body is going to draw in too much water and you can imagine all of this water increases the volume of the blood, and now there's extra pressure on the blood vessel walls. So blood pressure is the amount of pressure on the walls of your arteries. And if you're a visual learner like me, just think of a garden hose.

When the water is off, there isn't any pressure on the walls of the hose. When the water is on halfway, there's some pressure on the walls of the hose. If you have that water turned on full bore, there's a lot of pressure being exerted. And so having high blood pressure is much like having the water turned on all the way and why this is bad is that over time, this constant pressure on the artery walls damages them and then they can become clogged. And you can imagine that can lead to potentially a heart attack or a stroke.

What types of food are high in sodium?

 

CAROLYN: So what you're eating, what is it that you're actually eating that contains too much sodium? So let's just start with probably everybody's favorite item, a pizza, pepperoni pizza, whatever. That, if you had like three slices of that, it was, it would be almost 1200 milligrams of sodium. So remember 2300, that's the max that you're supposed to have in a day. So that's a lot.

CASSIE: You're already over half.

CAROLYN: You're already over half. So again that, you know, American Heart Association recommends no more than 2300. So three, that three pieces of pizza’s over half, that amount of sodium that you should consume for that whole day.

CASSIE: And that's one meal.

CAROLYN: That's one meal.

CASSIE: That's one meal. So what if on that same day you also pulled through a drive through and I I'm just picking Wendy's but this is going to be similar for any fast food restaurant. But to look up the numbers, I looked up a Wendy's drive through double cheeseburger fries and a Coke; probably pretty standard. I don't know. I haven't been through drive through for 20 years, but I'm guessing that's pretty standard.

That's almost 2000 milligrams of sodium right there. That's 1,990 milligrams in a double cheeseburger, an order of fries and a Coke. So if you let's just say, real life example, if you ate fast food for one meal, and then you popped a frozen pizza into the oven for dinner and had three pieces of that, your sodium intake would be 3,100 milligrams.

CAROLYN: At least, at least. Right?

CASSIE: That's nothing else, yeah, in addition throughout the day, but that right there is almost a thousand milligrams over what the American Heart Association recommends in a day.

CAROLYN: Yeah. And that's, that sounds fairly realistic to me. I mean, I used to hear clients say that that's what they do. You know, cause they're running out at lunch.

CASSIE: It's a different world than what we lived, isn't it? But I think you're right.

CAROLYN: Yeah. I mean maybe the pandemic might have changed some of that.

CASSIE: I don't know. I think in our neighborhood, the pizza delivery guy made bank during the pandemic.

CAROLYN: I guess I have to take that back because every day, if I'm driving by there's two fast food places right near my house. And the, the lineup is out around the corner and down the street on one of them, every, almost every time.

CASSIE: Which is kind of gross to me, but also kind of laughable because if you just, you know, stuck a pot roast in the crock pot with some vegetables, I mean the time that you could save instead of sitting in that line.

CAROLYN: So they think it’s faster. I don't know. That's not.

CASSIE: That’s not it.

CAROLYN: It’s not fast food anymore, is it?

CASSIE: No. So when we get back from break, we're going to give you a simple, delicious meal that you can cook in your own home. If you've just recently joined us, you're listening to Dishing Up Nutrition. Before we break. I just want to remind listeners: we mentioned it earlier. We created Dishing Up Nutrition 18 years ago. And the goal back then is the same as it is now. We want to help people understand the connection between what they eat and how they feel. And today, Carolyn and I are in studio making that connection between the amount of sodium and the amount of sugar in your diet and high blood pressure. We know that currently 50% of adults in the United States have high blood pressure. So it's a health concern for a lot of people. And it seems to be on the rise. Stay with us. We'll be talking more about this connection when we return.

BREAK

CAROLYN: Welcome back to Dishing Up Nutrition. Summer is finally here. So it's burger time. Maybe you want to join Marianne, our culinary nutrition educator, to learn how to make the perfect burger that not only tastes great, but is healthy. So you could join Marianne July 13th at six o'clock for a Zoom cooking class. The cost is only $25 and everyone enjoys the cooking classes as they learn. Call us at (651) 699-3438 to sign up.

Take a Cooking Class

CASSIE: Oh, that I bet that class is going to fill up.

CAROLYN: Oh, Marianne's classes are so good.

CASSIE: She's amazing. And her voice is so easy to listen to too, which really helps. But yeah, who doesn't love a burger on the grill? So I think that one is really you, you might want to sign up now if you're interested before it fills up. And speaking of burgers, so before we went to break, we were giving you a, I think a pretty standard American day, right? There was a fast food meal and then a frozen pizza in the evening. And we talked about how that was almost a thousand milligrams over what the American Heart Association recommends in terms of sodium. So let's, instead of gloom and doom, let's, let's talk about, about what we should do.

Healthy, low sodium meal ideas

 

Let's talk about a happy scenario. So let's say you made a burger patty. I mean, what that takes you a minute. Throw that on the grill. That'll cook up in about five, six minutes. So you're going to cook a burger at home. And then what if you dice up a sweet potato, throw that in the oven to roast? And if you pull out a bag of frozen broccoli from your freezer, that'll just take a couple of minutes on the stove top. And then of course you have to top your vegetables with butter, right? So maybe add, add a pat of butter. So let's dissect that home cooked fast and easy meal. The burger, a three-ounce hamburger patty made at home has about 68 milligrams of sodium. If you had about a serving size of sweet potato. So say you have about three quarters of a cup, little shy of a cup, that's 66 milligrams of sodium, and then load up your plate with that broccoli. If you have two cups of the green vegetable, that's 30 milligrams of sodium and put a tablespoon of butter on top. That's two milligrams. We add all that up. The total is 166 milligrams of sodium for that whole meal.

CAROLYN: Yeah. Yeah. So…

CASSIE: Under 200.

CAROLYN: Yeah. And those are, the sodium in those products, you know, in the burger and the broccoli, that's naturally occurring that where we haven't added any salt on that. And so with that, you could even add a little sprinkle of salt. It's not a big deal, right?

CASSIE: It's not going to harm you. It's not going to raise your blood pressure. So, you know, I think this paints a good picture of how the standard American diet, the fast food, the frozen pizza, the potato chips, that can really be the culprit of a person's high blood pressure, because it is loaded with sodium, as you saw in the examples that Carolyn gave you. But that delicious meal I just talked about cooked at home, that contained just 10% of the whopping 2000 milligrams in the fast food meal we talked about. So your food choices do matter.

CAROLYN: They definitely do matter. So we, I think the point to drive home is anytime you're eating out or eating a processed meal, let's say like a frozen pizza or frozen or frozen…

CASSIE: Chicken nuggets or hot pockets or, or corn dogs.

CAROLYN: Any of those things. When they're making those in, in the food plants, they are adding a lot of things that increase that sodium content of that particular food. So you wouldn't think that having a burger at your favorite burger joint would be that bad, but there, it's not just hamburger.

CASSIE: It's not just a single ingredient.

CAROLYN: It's not a single ingredient, like what you would do at home. And even if you added, let's say, ah, maybe a little bit of, of different spices, maybe even a dash of Worcestershire or something like that, yeah, that has some sodium in it, but it's not going to be like what you would have at the fast food joint.

CASSIE: Not going to put you over the top.

Too much sugar boosts blood pressure

 

CAROLYN: No, no, not at all. So again, yes, sodium can be a problem for this kind of a high blood pressure and ongoing hypertension, but it's not just the excess salt that boosts blood pressure. It is also too much sugar. Like we were saying it is before too much sugar and of course processed carbs that turn into sugar. So, and think about the fast food meal you just talked about. Not only was it the sodium or salt. Think about the French fries. You know what two French fries is going to turn into like a teaspoon of sugar.

CASSIE: A teaspoon of sugar.

CAROLYN: Two.

CASSIE: Yeah. Who stops at two?

CAROLYN: And you got the bun.

CASSIE: You have the high fructose corn syrup in the ketchup.

CAROLYN: Oh, oh yeah. The ketchup for sure.

CASSIE: If you have, if you have a Coke with that.

CAROLYN: Oh, yeah, and then you're going to have, yeah, you're going to have a pop or something like that. Right?

CASSIE: Right.

CAROLYN: So you've got a lot of carbs in there.

CASSIE: You're getting a double whammy. You're getting the sodium and the sugar. Good point.

Research shows link between sugar-sweetened drinks and high blood pressure

 

CAROLYN: So it's not really very shocking at all that half of Americans have high blood pressure or pre-hypertension. Researchers really have found a link between high blood pressure and sugar sweetened drinks: soda, fruit drinks, lemonade, fruit punch, teas, sweet teas. The study did not include even those high sugar coffee drinks that everybody seems to be consuming. The Starbucks lines are out.

CASSIE: Well, they're all getting the, the frozen Frappuccino things and the iced things now aren't they? I was just at Target getting groceries. And it was, there was a lot of people in the Starbucks line.

CAROLYN: Mm-Hmm. Yeah. Yeah. So, and those sugary coffee drinks, they have anywhere between 18 and 25 teaspoons of sugar.

CASSIE: More than you should have in a day.

CAROLYN: Right. Exactly. And you know, I think that's, that's important to say too. The American Heart Association says six teaspoons have added sugar, right?

CASSIE: For women and nine for men. So yeah. You've doubled that just by getting a coffee drink. I'm so glad you brought up the fancy coffee drinks, because I don't think people stop to realize very often when they're drinking something, that that can contribute to their sugar and contribute to their sugar intake and their high blood pressure. I think people tend to think more of foods, but it's the drinks.

CAROLYN: Yeah. Yeah. I know. I know I was really conscious with my kids and the juices. I, I just, we don't, we didn't do juice.

CASSIE: No. Why? Eat the fruit.

CAROLYN: We ate the fruit.

CASSIE: And drink water.

CAROLYN: And most people aren't thinking about that.

CASSIE: No. That's why we're here. That's why we're on the radio to help you think about that. I have some research here to share Carolyn. This came out of Louisiana State University. Dr. Chen was the lead author if anybody wants to Google search that. But this research out of Louisiana State found that the people that reduced their high sugar drinks by just six ounces had a drop in their blood pressure.

So you don't always have to give up your favorite thing entirely. Something to keep in mind. The study went further and it looked at what happened when these people in the study decreased their high sugar beverages by 12 ounces. They got an even more significant drop. They had almost a two point drop in the systolic blood pressure, the one on the top. And they had a 1.1 point reduction in diastolic pressure.

Again, that was when they reduced their high sugar beverage of choice by 12 ounces. And that might not sound like a big drop. Almost two points in the top number. 1.1 in the bottom number. But it is enough to make a difference in heart disease risk and stroke incidents. So think about that. If you are in the habit of getting a fancy coffee drink most days of the week, how about you give that up? You'll also be kind your pocket book during this high inflation time.

So if you gave up, let's say your high sugar coffee drink, and maybe you're in the habit of grabbing a can of pop in the afternoon, if you could give that up as well. We know that there could be a three point drop in your blood pressure, which equates to an 8% reduction in strokes.

Connection between sugar and high blood pressure

 

CAROLYN: I want to back up here a little bit and explain why sugar increases your blood pressure. If you have an increase in sugar, that's going to… sugar intake or carb intake, that's going to increase the insulin response and activates your insulin response. And that activates the sympathetic nervous system. And that then leads to a higher heart rate and a higher blood pressure. Also, it decreases, insulin decreases the sensitivity of the receptors that regulate blood pressure.

CASSIE: Interesting.

CAROLYN: So this is, this is a complicated, we, we have complicated bodies, right?

CASSIE: Yes, yes.

CAROLYN: And they react to a lot of different things. And so sugar is really a bit of a problem when it comes to that insulin response. And we only think of insulin response as diabetes, but no.

CASSIE: No,

CAROLYN: It's blood pressure also.

CASSIE: Insulin is the master hormone. So it can affect so many different things. Thank you for that short little biochemistry lesson. That’s good information. And we're going to take our final break of the hour. Just a reminder, you're listening to Dishing Up Nutrition. And if you're enjoying the show, do consider joining our private Dishing Up Nutrition Facebook group that Carolyn and I mentioned at the top of the hour. Again, to sign up, just go to facebook.com/groups/dishingupnutrition. It's a great place to connect and to get your nutrition questions answered. And stay with us. We'll be back on the other side of this break.

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CAROLYN: Welcome back to Dishing Up Nutrition. As we look ahead to upcoming classes, I encourage everyone to take our foundation class series called Weight and Wellness. This is our signature class, and we offer CEUs for nurses and social workers. The class series starts August 18th and is from 6:30 to 8:30. This class is designed to give you a real food foundation. It is so nice to be able to offer this series in person at our new Woodbury office. So if you want more information about that, please call us at 651-699-3438 or read about it online at weightandwellness.com.

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All right. So we were talking about sugar and you know, it's really a well-known fact that 200 years ago, fewer people had high blood pressure. But why? Research really has found that people who consume 10 to 25% of their calories from sugary or high carb foods are at a higher risk for heart disease. We didn't have a lot of those foods 200 years ago.

CASSIE: No.

CAROLYN: There was no processed foods.

CASSIE: And when we talk about processed foods, we should tell listeners kind of what we're like cold breakfast cereal.

CAROLYN: Right.

CASSIE: If you're having corn flakes or Wheaties or anything from a box in the morning, that's a processed food. Granola bars.

CAROLYN: Yeah.

CASSIE: Bread. Right? Anything you can't grow in your garden or pick from a tree is a processed carbohydrate.

High fructose corn syrup contributes to hypertension

 

CAROLYN: Right. Right. Exactly. So there is a lot of compelling evidence from basic science studies on hypertension that sugar, particularly high fructose corn syrup sugar is contributing to overall to cardiovascular health. So what foods and drinks contain fructose, high corn syrup fructose? Certainly soda, coffee drinks, some of those iced teas, fruit drinks, and a lot of our processed foods, which you wouldn't even think have…

CASSIE: Oh, like some of the cans of kidney beans, for example, I mean, you'll find it in some of the strangest places: pickles, you know, read, read your ingredient list.

CAROLYN: Mm-Hmm. So if a person drinks a 24 ounce soft drink, you know, it's been shown to increase their blood pressure five points and their heart rate nine beats.

CASSIE: That's significant.

CAROLYN: It really is. Isn't it?

CASSIE: A 24-ounce soft drink increases blood pressure five points and heart rate nine beats. Wow. And you know, being that we're coming up on the 4th of July holiday, I think we should also mention that depending on what you plan on mixing up in your cocktail before you go out on the pontoon and cruise the lake, you know, you're, you're probably putting some fructose in that glass too. You might want to rethink your recipe.

The alcohol connection to blood pressure: client testimonial

 

CAROLYN: Mm-Hmm. Well, I have a really good example here. I had a client, male client that was taking a blood pressure medication and he wanted of course to try to get off of that medication. So we chatted a lot about his diet and he was older and he didn't really, you know, eat out or go through the drive throughs or anything like that. So he was eating pretty healthfully. But he did have a pretty strong cocktail every single night. Now I can't remember exactly what it was: Manhattan or something like that. And he really was not willing to give that up. He'd been doing this, he was sitting down with his wife every evening in the cocktail before dinner, you know, it was a tradition.

CASSIE: A ritual.

CAROLYN: A ritual. And so I said, well, how about this? How about if you cut the shot or, you know, however much alcohol you normally have, cut it in half. And he said, “Oh, I can do that.”

CASSIE: The art of compromise.

CAROLYN: And, and a few months later he was back in my office. He was off his blood pressure medication

CASSIE: Really?

CAROLYN: It was just that one thing that he changed.

CASSIE: Well, you had him doing other things right already.

CAROLYN: Right. Right. And we, and there was some educating in, in terms of the foods he was eating, but he was very receptive. And his wife, you know, was more than willing to change a few of the things that they were doing. But really, I think it was the alcohol. And he just, he didn't cut it out.

CASSIE: No. Well, and I think that's key. I love that story. And some people might need to cut it out, but, but just for people listening to know that sometimes it's just about moderating.

CAROLYN: Right.

CASSIE: Wow. That's, that's a great story.

CAROLYN: Yeah. Studies also found that eating high sugar foods or drinks in this case increases both your systolic and your diastolic. That's your top and your bottom numbers, right; blood pressure. And those who consumed more calories from added sugars, like processed foods, fast food, have almost a threefold increased risk of dying from a heart attack or stroke.

CASSIE: That's motivation to get in the kitchen and pick up some real food instead.

CAROLYN: And this is not just for adults. That's not for just you and I; people our age. Heart disease starts really young. In fact, I think they're testing teens for cholesterol and blood pressure.

CASSIE: Oh. And it's not just teenagers. When my, granted, my two kids are teenagers now, but it was when they were in elementary school that they started testing their cholesterol. I remember being a bit offended cause I tried to tell them, we eat at home almost all the time. I'm a dietitian. I cook good food. You don't have to test them. But you know, I don't know they were directed to do that. And I think goes without saying my kids' cholesterol numbers were fine, but yeah, it starts that young: elementary kids.

CAROLYN: It makes sense when I see what some of these kids are consuming, you know, they're consuming anywhere between six and 16 times more sugar than what the American Heart Association recommends.

CASSIE: Yes.

CAROLYN: So we need to teach them about the harmful effects rather than like harping on “You can't have or you shouldn't have that soda or that, that fast food” or whatever. We need to teach them the whys.

CASSIE: The whys. And we need to model for them.

CAROLYN: Oh, absolutely.

CASSIE: Words and actions.

CAROLYN: When they see us doing all of those things, what are they going to do?

CASSIE: Right.

CAROLYN: They're going to model right after us. So yeah.

CASSIE: Yeah. So yeah, I think we've established that most dietary sodium doesn't come from, from the salt shaker and, and most dietary sugar doesn't come from the sugar bowl. Right?

CAROLYN: Right.

CASSIE: The high sodium, the high sugar intake in the standard American diet is coming from these pre-made foods: the corn dogs, the hot pockets, the “foo-foo” drinks at the Starbucks, Starbucks and the Caribou and any coffee shop. I don't mean to just pick on them.

Eat less processed foods to reduce hypertension risk

 

CAROLYN: Yeah. Right. So if you're looking to reduce your risk for hypertension, we want you to try to eat less processed foods that are of course, full of sodium and full of carbs or sugar. High blood pressure over time is going to damage your arteries. So go back to the visual that Cassie gave earlier with the garden hose, right? It's going to, that more pressure on those arteries is going to damage the arteries, and that's going to lead to, you know, long term heart disease.

CASSIE: Yes. And I, you know, just hearing you reiterate that we need to eat less processed foods, get back to real food it, it reminds me of my husband and what happened when the pandemic hit. So if I have a minute here, I'm just going to share. So my husband is a, a sales, he's in management, but he's in a sales position. So you can imagine he's I mean…

CAROLYN: Entertaining clients.

CASSIE: Three, three days out of five, at least he's taking clients out for lunch and then pre-pandemic, traveling a lot. So you're eating out. You're not moving your body enough; a lot of evening events with alcohol. And, and so his numbers were getting scary. The doctor appointment shortly before the pandemic hit, everything was, was kind of borderline. And he had prediabetes; the, the blood pressure was right on that cusp of being prescribed a medication. Cholesterol was getting too high.

Then the pandemic hit and we've heard people say it. It's true. Some good things did come out of this pandemic. So now all of a sudden he's at home every day. There's no traveling. There's, you know, nothing, right? We're all at home. I'm cooking real food and he's eating what I'm making and he's not drinking or, or rarely having alcohol. And then during the pandemic about a year in, he had an annual checkup. Everything went down.

CAROLYN: Everything was in line again, right?

CASSIE: No surprise. Yeah. I mean, blood pressure is normal. Cholesterol went down. Blood, blood sugar is normal. So again, food matters.

CAROLYN: Food really makes the difference. Doesn't it?

CASSIE: Yes.

CAROLYN: And again, like my alcohol example, you know, you don't have to give everything up, but let's do some moderation here. Let's, I mean, you don't have to stop going out to eat cause believe me, when we finally were, the restaurants were finally open, I really wanted to get out.

CASSIE: You went hog-wild, huh?

CAROLYN: Like, oh my gosh, I get to go out to eat again.

CASSIE: Right, right. Yeah. And you don't have to never go out to eat, but, but making good choices and, and knowing what the good choices are and knowing how to get in the kitchen and cook a little bit. And I think part of that too, to help our listeners be successful, educate yourself, find support, find people that will help you make a commitment. Carolyn mentioned our upcoming Weight and Wellness series. That'll start in August. That would be a great choice. We also have a Nutrition for Weight Loss class that will start in July.

Take Nutrition 4 Weight Loss

That's online if you'd rather do that. Or sign up for monthly nutrition sessions with your dietitian.

Schedule Nutrition Counseling

And as we wrap it up today, I just want to remind listeners that our goal at Nutritional Weight and Wellness is to help each and every person experience better health through eating real food. Yes. It's a simple message, but it's a powerful message. Eating real food is life changing. Thank you for joining us and have a healthy day.