DEAR DR. DONOHUE: Would you please list the vegetables that help lower blood pressure? – J.C.

ANSWER: The high blood pressure diet doesn’t zero in only on vegetables. Fruits, grains and low-fat dairy products are important elements of it. It’s the DASH diet, the Dietary Approach to Stop Hypertension. The first commandment of diet control of blood pressure is to cut back on salt – don’t put salt on the table and don’t use much, if any, to cook. Look on labels for sodium or sodium chloride. Avoid heavily salted foods – luncheon meats, commercial soups, frozen dinners.

This is the DASH diet:

Whole grains: Get six to eight servings a day. A serving is one slice of whole-grain bread or 1/2 cup of cooked rice, pasta or cereal. Any equivalent amount of grains is acceptable.

Vegetables: Get four to five servings a day. A serving is 1 cup of raw, leafy vegetable or 1/2 cup of cooked vegetable, any one you like.

Fruits: Get four or five servings a day. A serving is 6 ounces of fruit juice; or a medium apple, pear or peach; or ¼ cup dry fruit; or ½ cup frozen or canned fruit.

Dairy: Get two or three servings a day. A serving is 8 ounces of low-fat milk, 1 cup low-fat yogurt, 1.5 ounces of low-fat cheese.

Lean meat or fish: Get two or fewer servings a day. A serving is 3 ounces.

Nuts: Get four or five servings a week. A serving is 1.5 ounces.

Fats and oils: Get two or three servings a day. A serving is 1 teaspoon soft margarine or 1 teaspoon vegetable oil or olive oil.

Foods rich in potassium lower pressure. They include: apricots, bananas, dates, grapes, orange juice, grapefruit, baked potato with skin, lima beans, navy beans, pinto beans, squash, spinach, sweet potatoes, pork, beef, salmon.

DEAR DR. DONOHUE: Your recent column on blood pressure made no sense. A trash collector who is very active will sustain high blood pressure all day long. A football player will have high pressure for hours during games and practices. The same goes for basketball players who run back and forth for hours. If what you say is true, these athletes would be having heart attacks and strokes. And yet you recommend exercise, which raises blood pressure. Now you’d better explain how this works, because it doesn’t make sense. – G.M.

ANSWER: Blood pressure doesn’t stay the same throughout the day. It varies depending on what people are doing. That’s normal and healthy and necessary. If blood pressure didn’t rise when a person exerted, then no hard work could be done. The rise in pressure is necessary to support the effort it takes to accomplish physical labor.

However, high levels of pressure are not sustained by the trash collector or the football player or the basketball player. Pressure rises very briefly and then returns to normal in between the periods of intense effort. Blood pressure is recorded in the sitting position after a person has rested for five minutes. That’s the pressure I am talking about – resting blood pressure.

Dr. Donohue regrets that he is unable to answer individual letters, but he will incorporate them in his column whenever possible. Readers may write him or request an order form of available health newsletters at P.O. Box 536475, Orlando, FL 32853-6475. Readers may also order health newsletters from www.rbmamall.com