Remember sticking your finger over the hose when you were a
child and making the water shoot further?
Well that is not necessarily a good thing in the body. High blood
pressure or “hypertension” is closely associated with coronary artery closure
due to plaque formation and arterial stiffening as the normally elastic vessels
require more pressure to fully circulate blood to the body. High blood pressure
is also called the silent killer as it makes your heart work too hard, hardens
the walls of your arteries, and can cause the brain to hemorrhage or the
kidneys to function poorly or not at all. If not controlled, high blood
pressure can lead to heart and kidney disease, impotence, stroke, blindness and
impaired cognitive ability.
High blood pressure is an epidemic that is currently
sweeping across America impacting nearly 30% of all American population. This
condition is costing the country 93.5 billion dollars in health care services.
Not only is high blood pressure a dangerous condition in itself, the medication
and drugs prescribed for it are also dangerous because of the high costs and
the side effects where natural remedies and life style corrections are
generally sufficient to prevent and control high blood pressure.
Chances are that if you have hypertension, you also have
poorly controlled blood sugar levels, because these two problems often go hand
in hand. Nearly two-thirds of the patients who are insulin resistant (IR) also
tend to have high blood pressure, and that insulin resistance is directly attributable
to a high sugar, high grain diet, especially if accompanied by inadequate
exercise. Check out our Diabetes Report for related info.
What is Hypertension?
High blood pressure is classified as a systolic pressure of
more than 140 and the diastolic pressure of more than 90. It's interesting to
note that about 4 years ago, high blood pressure was classified as 160/95.
Hypertension is a leading cause of illness caused by unhealth life style and
habbits. Of course, there are many etiologies to this common disease including
Poor Sleep or Lack of Sleep; however, most cases are because we have gotten
fat, old, and out of shape.
MAIN CAUSES: Many factors play an important role in today’s
hi-tech world that causes the blood pressure to soar. Main ones affecting the
blood pressure are:
* Smoking
* Lack of Physical Activity
* Being Obese
* Too much intake of common salt
* Stress
* Old Age
* Genetics, Hereditary- family History of High Blood
Pressure
* Chronic Kidney Diseases
* Adrenal and Thyroid Diseases
* Pregnancy
Diet and exercise is the key to keeping blood pressure low.
The fact that you are no longer young and fit is the real problem, and we all
inevitably develop hardening of the arteries known as “atherosclerosis”, but it
is the leading effect in high blood pressure.
Life Style Changes:
- Get leisure time physical activity at least three times
per week to maintain normal body weight with BMI lower than 25. Yoga is perfect
for everyone trying to lose weight or reduce arthritis, stress, or just
increase agility, balance and peace of mind. Find a few favorite Yoga poses
from classes at your gym or favourite video and try to incorporate at least
five to twenty minutes of these gentle stretches in to your day. Meditation's
impact on the risk of cardiovascular disease including hypertension is phenomenal.
- Reduce Salt/ Sodium Intake. Choose foods that are lower in
salt and sodium content. Reducing sodium intake will work better if you
increase consumption of potassium. - Avoid processed foods, junk foods and
fried foods.
- Delete foods and drinks sweetened with fructose from your
diet entirely.
- Go easy on alcohol. Drinking too much alcohol can raise
blood pressure. Limit your alcohol intake to one drink if you are a woman and
two drinks if you are a man.
- Decrease/Eliminate Caffeine: Caffeine is just like
throwing gasoline on the hypertensive fire. Now the reason why people get those
“caffeine headaches” is because they are used to caffeine restricting all their
blood vessels…but once the body metabolizes all the caffeine we get the painful
rebound headache effect called “vasodilation” which means that our arteries
dilate and cause a throbbing headache.
Vitamin & Minerals: It is of utmost importance that you
take necessary Vitamin D, B3, A, E & C along with appropriate Magnesium
intakes.
Medicinal Herb Remedies:
- Cordyceps is a Chinese herb which slows the heart rate,
lowers blood pressure and yet also increases the blood supply to the arteries
and heart.
- Reishi mushrooms used in Chinese medicine boost your
immune system, fight cancer, ward off heart disease, calm your nerves and
relieve both allergies and inflammation.
- Hawthorn Berries have been traditionally used to treat
high blood pressure and a variety of heart realted issues.
- Stevia Herb has shown in a number of animal and human studies
to reduce hypertension.
- Green tea helps prevent clogged arteries and keeps blood
pressure under control.
- Ginger reduces blood pressure and prevents blood clots.
- Garlic reduces the blood pressure by 10-15%. That's about
20 points for many people with high blood pressure.
- Cinnamon helps lower blood pressure as well as circulating
blood glucose, triglycerides, and LDL cholesterol.
- Cardamom improves antioxidant status while breaking down
blood clots without significantly altering blood lipids and fibrinogen levels.
- Oregano contains the compound carvacrol which has been
proven to be effective against blood pressure.
- Cayenne Pepper is effective in combating high blood
pressure.
Diet:
- Substituting high sugar grains with gluten free Sorghum,
Pearl Millet and Finger Millet can neutralize the hypertensive effect of excess
sodium.
- Foods with alpha-lipoic acid & calcium like curd,
spinach, leafy vegetables, Chick peas, Red Kidney Beans and Moth Bean.
- Brown rice or unpolished rice are natural, side-effect
free angiotensin II blocker. Angiotensin II can trigger serious cardiovascular
problems.
- Celery contains active compounds named phthalides which
serves to calm the nervous system, automatically counterbalancing stress
levels.
- Eating payaya on an empty stomach can lower high blood
pressure within a month.
- Coconut Water is high in potassium which helps reduce
blood pressure as it balances out sodium which promotes hypertension.
- Apple Cider Vinegar is a miracle cure for high blood
pressure patients.
- Onions contain quercetin, an antioxidant flavonol found to
prevent heart disease and stroke.
- Olives oil contain Polyphenols especially high in
extra-virgin olive oil which provide significant reduction in blood pressure.
- Pomegranate, Blueberries & Grapes contain polyphenol
resveratrol that protects the blood vessel walls and improves the way these
cells respond to metabolic shifts that affect blood pressure.
- Nuts & Seeds provide omega-3 which is essential for
vascular tissue/artery maintainance and cholesterol reduction.
- Watermelon helps against narrowing of blood vessels and
has a vasodilatory effect.
- Fish has always been considered health food. Fish oils are
known to maintain blood pressure.
- Drink plenty of fluids daily to drain out all the
unhealthy salts from the body. Drink water equivalent to 50 percent of your
body weight in ounce. For example, if you weigh 140 pounds, drink 70 ounce of
water every day.