Foods people with hypertension should avoid

Nursing Students Student Assist

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Hi, I have a question in an exam prep book and can't work out what the answer is.

Which of the following foods should hypertensive people avoid?

a) Potatoes

b) Fish

c) Lettuce

d) Tinned soup

I think its either tinned soup (because its processed) or potatoes (because of the high carbohydrate content).

Anyone know the answer?

Hi there! People with hypertension should avoid canned foods because of the high content of sodium. When someone is dignosed with hypertension, they are recommended to strip all unnecessary*sodium from their diet. Hope this helps. :)

Specializes in ER trauma, ICU - trauma, neuro surgical.

The soup is definitely bad. Carbs don't necessarily affect HTN directly. Carbs can lead to insulin spikes, obesity, etc....so that can somehow relate to HTN down the road b/c of poor diets habits leading to obesity. Some studies are showing that if carbs are switched out, it may lead to a reduction in HTN. It would have to do more with the fact of the potatoes being salted or processed before eating. A baked potato without all the nastiness would affect your B/P alone. As said before, anything with salt is bad.

Specializes in Critical Care.

First off, I hope they didn't actually say "tinned" soup since that would be soup coated in tin. Second, for the purposes of Nursing school they are most likely looking for D) soup, due to it's high sodium content. It was once thought that a low sodium diet could help treat hypertension, although we now know that only a small portion of people with hypertension are "salt sensitive" (but for the purposes of Nursing School try to ignore any knowledge more current that 15 years old).

Specializes in Critical Care, ED, Cath lab, CTPAC,Trauma.

Tinned soup.....the cans are tin.

Thanks, makes sense now.

It did say tinned soup.

Specializes in Complex pedi to LTC/SA & now a manager.

Where are you from? I know other areas of the world may refer to canned soup as "tinned soup". Is this a US based exam prep book? That will make some difference in the responses given.

Specializes in Forensic Psych.

The answer is definitely tinned soup - testing to see if you know that Pts with HTN should avoid salt. Canned foods are generally high in salt.

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