According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), about one in three American adults have hypertension (high blood pressure)! Hypertension increases your risk for a number of more serious health problems, including heart attack, stroke, congestive heart failure and end-stage kidney disease. 16 million Americans, who take blood pressure medication, still do not have their blood pressure under control!
What Causes Hypertension?
Underlying causes of high blood pressure can related to:
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1. Your body producing too much insulin and leptin, in response to a high-carbohydrate and processed food diet.
2. Elevated uric acid levels
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3. A vitamin D deficiency
4. If you have a high waist-to-hip ratio - To calculate your waist-to-hip ratio, measure the circumference of your hips at the widest part, across your buttocks, and your waist at the smallest circumference of your natural waist, just above your belly button. Then divide your waist measurement by your hip measurement to get the ratio.
One huge step to controlling primary hypertension, is to eliminate as much sugar and fructose from your diet as possible.
Your Blood Pressure:
There are two numbers given in a blood pressure reading. The upper or first number is your systolic blood pressure reading. The lower or second number is your diastolic pressure.
120 over 80 means 120 millimeters of mercury systolic arterial pressure and 80 millimeters of mercury diastolic arterial pressure. Your systolic pressure occurs when your ventricles contract at the beginning of your cardiac cycle. Diastolic pressure occurs during the resting phase of your cardiac cycle. Ideally, your blood pressure should be about 120/80 without medication.
If you're over the age of 60, your systolic pressure is thought to be a more important cardiovascular risk factor. If you're under 60 and have no other major risk factors for cardiovascular disease, your diastolic pressure is believed to be a more important risk factor.
Primary versus Secondary Hypertension:
Primary hypertension covers about 90 - 95% of those with high blood pressure and has no known medical cause. Secondary hypertension applies to the remaining 5 - 10% and is caused by other causes, such as chronic liver disease.
Pre-primary hypertensive patients, should be encouraged to make appropriate lifestyle changes to address their condition.
If you have seriously elevated blood pressure and want to get it under control naturally, it would certainly be a consideration to talk to your medical doctor about using medication to prevent a stroke or another serious illness, while you are in the process of implementing natural treatment recommendations.
What's Your Fasting Insulin Level?
A fasting insulin level test is important to check if you have primary hypertension, since high blood pressure and insulin resistance tend to go hand-in-hand.
How to Avoid a False Hypertension Diagnosis:
Blood pressure reading can vary significantly from day to day, and even from one hour to the next. Don't overreact if you get one high reading here or there. It is when your blood pressure remains consistently or chronically elevated that significant health problems can occur. The following variables can also affect the validity of your blood pressure reading:
1. An incorrect blood pressure cuff size - If the cuff is too big or too small, your reading will be altered.
2. Incorrect arm position - Blood pressure readings should always be taken seated, with your arm at a right angle to your body, level with the heart.
3. White coat syndrome - Nervousness caused by the stress or fear associated with a doctor's visit, can give you a higher reading.
Eight Key Strategies for Lowering Your Blood Pressure:
1. Avoid trans fat in margarine, vegetable oils, and various butter-like spreads. Trans fats prevent the formation of prostacyclin. Prostacyclin helps to keep your blood thin, which will reduce your risk of heart attack and stroke.
2. If your blood pressure is running high, you should have your insulin and leptin sensitivity tested and balanced.
3. Avoiding processed foods and anything with high in sugar/fructose, grains, & trans fat.
4. Consider intermittent fasting to normalize your insulin/leptin sensitivity. It's not a diet in conventional terms, but rather a way of scheduling your eating in such a way as to promote efficient energy use. Essentially, intermittent fasting means eating your calories during a specific window of the day, and choosing not to eat food during the rest. When you eat, your body reacts by elevating insulin and leptin. This isn't for everyone. Diabetics may have their blood sugar drop too low. Consult your physician prior to commencing an intermittent fasting program.
5. Starchy carbohydrates cause a far greater insulin elevation than protein, while fat requires no insulin for digestion. If you're constantly snacking or drinking sugary drinks, your insulin/leptin levels will remain chronically elevated, which tends to promote high blood pressure. The more sensitive your body is to insulin/leptin, the more likely you'll be to use the food you consume efficiently, which will help improve insulin resistance, and promote weight loss and the creation of muscle. Your body is most sensitive to insulin/leptin following a period of fasting. Fasting also boosts human growth hormone secretion, which is another important key to weight loss and muscle growth.
6. Make whole, ideally organic foods the focus of your diet.
7. Swap carbs for healthy fats. Sources of healthy fats to add to your diet include; avocados, organic butter, organic pastured eggs, organic coconut oil, unheated organic nut oils, raw organic nuts, grass fed meats and pasture raised poultry :
8. Exercising regularly.
Should You Cut Sodium to Lower Your Blood Pressure?
Insulin also affects your blood pressure by causing your body to retain sodium. Sodium retention causes fluid retention. Fluid retention in turn can cause high blood pressure, which may ultimately lead to congestive heart failure. A standard recommendation if you have high blood pressure is to reduce the amount of sodium in your diet. While it's certainly beneficial to cut out processed salt, the type found in processed foods and regular table salt, limiting sodium is not the hypertension cure that many think it is.
If you're simply opting for low-sodium processed foods, you're missing the point. You need real food, not processed "food"! Have you heard of the DASH diet, which is claims to be among the most effective for controlling hypertension? It consists largely of fresh vegetables, fruits, lean protein, whole grains, low-fat dairy and a very low sodium content. But it's ALSO low in sugar/fructose. So, while people on DASH diets do show reduced hypertension, the reason for this is probably a combination of the reduction of processed salt, sugar and fructose.
Excess fructose promotes hypertension, possibly even more than excess salt. Salt is actually essential for maintaining and regulating blood pressure, but the crux lies in the type of salt you consume. Natural salt, such as Himalayan salt, contains 84% sodium chloride, and 16% naturally-occurring trace minerals. Processed (table) salt, on the other hand, contains 97.5% sodium chloride and the rest is man-made chemicals. The former is essential for good health; the latter is best avoided altogether.
The Importance of Proper Sodium-to-Potassium Ratio:
Another factor that comes into play when we're talking about sodium and blood pressure, is maintaining a healthy sodium to potassium ratio. Your body needs potassium to maintain proper pH levels in your body fluids and it also plays an integral role in regulating your blood pressure. It's actually possible, in some cases, that a potassium deficiency may be a greater contributor to hypertension than excess sodium. Most people need less sodium and more potassium, calcium, and magnesium.
Don't jump out and buy potassium supplements to correct a sodium-potassium imbalance. Instead, it is best to simply alter your diet and incorporate more potassium-rich whole foods.
Addressing Stress-Related Hypertension:
The link between stress and hypertension is well documented. People with heart disease can lower their risk of subsequent cardiac events by over 70% by learning to manage their stress. This is easier said than done.
Negative emotions such as fear, anger and sadness can severely limit your ability to cope with the unavoidable every day stresses of life. It's not the stressful events themselves that are harmful, but your lack of ability to cope.
Other Factors:
Normalize your omega 6:3 ratio: Most Americans get too much omega-6 in their diet and far too little omega-3. Consuming omega-3 fats will help re-sensitize your insulin receptors if you suffer from insulin resistance. Omega-6 fats are found in corn, soy, canola, safflower, and sunflower oil. If you're consuming a lot of these oils, you'll want to avoid or limit them. Omega-3 fats are typically found in flaxseed oil, walnut oil, grass fed beef and fish, with fish being by far the best source. Unfortunately, most fresh fish today contains dangerously high levels of mercury. Your best bet is to find a safe source of fish, or if this proves too difficult or expensive, supplement with a high-quality krill oil, which has been found to be 48 times more potent than fish oil.
Consume fermented foods: If your gut flora is unhealthy, your risk is much greater for heart disease, as well as many other chronic health problems. The best way to optimize your gut flora is by including some naturally fermented foods in your diet, such as sauerkraut and other fermented vegetables, yogurt, kefir, and natto. An additional benefit of fermented foods is that some of them are excellent sources of vitamin K2, which is important for preventing arterial plaque buildup and heart disease.
Eliminate caffeine: The connection between coffee consumption and high blood pressure is not well understood, but there is ample evidence to indicate that if you have hypertension, coffee and other caffeinated drinks and foods can exacerbate your condition.
Vitamins C and E: Studies indicate that vitamins C and E may be helpful in lowering blood pressure. If you're eating a whole food diet, you should be getting sufficient amounts of these nutrients through your diet alone. If you decide you need a supplement, make sure to take a natural (not synthetic) form of vitamin E. You can tell what you're buying by carefully reading the label. Natural vitamin E is always listed as the "d-" form (d-alpha-tocopherol, d-beta-tocopherol, etc.) Synthetic vitamin E is listed as "dl-" forms.
Olive leaf extract: In one 2008 study, supplementing with 1,000 mg of olive leaf extract daily over eight weeks caused a significant dip in both blood pressure and LDL ("bad") cholesterol in people with borderline hypertension. If you want to incorporate olive leaves as a natural adjunct to a nutritionally sound diet, look for fresh leaf liquid extracts for maximum synergistic potency.
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