Hypertension Blog

In helping a hypertensive patient control his weight, your primary responsibilities include educating him about his prescribed diet and monitoring his weight reduction. You’ll also need to regularly measure his blood pressure.Review the elements of the weight-reduction diet with your patient. If appropriate, obtain a referral for a dietitian to assist him and his family with planning appropriate meals. Provide him with suggestions to help him comply with the prescribed diet, keeping in mind his food preferences and ethnic background. Also, recommend alternative food choices for patients with poor dentition, food intolerances, and limited physical mobility. And stress the importance of reducing weight to reduce blood pressure.

When teaching your patient, tell him to eat regularly planned meals and to not skip meals. Teach him to measure his foods to determine the correct portions. Also, tell him to avoid foods that are high in fat and sugars and to reduce the amount of fat he uses in cooking. Suggest baking, broiling, or steaming food as a way to eliminate all fried foods from his diet. Also, recommend he reduce fat by removing the skin on poultry before cooking and have him increase his daily intake of fruits and vegetables. And warn your patient to avoid fad and crash diets, which reduce weight only temporarily. Monitor the success of your patient’s weight reduction by recording weekly weights. Don’t measure daily weights because they reflect the body’s fluid status and don’t usually indicate total body weight reduction.

Use ongoing blood pressure measurement to evaluate his body’s response to weight reduction. Blood pressure readings don’t immediately show dramatic decrease. However, some reduction in blood pressure may occur with a weight loss of as little as 10 pounds. Reinforce the success of weight and blood pressure reductions with your patient to encourage ongoing compliance with the prescribed regimen.