Lower high blood pressure without drugs, part 2....

Today's Post: Tuesday, 9-7-2010

Earlier last week, one of my health emails said it had 9 ways to lower high blood pressure naturally.

This is a very important topic for health because many of the nondrug methods to lower high blood pressure also directly provide the health protection that your doctor is hoping to give you with the drugs.

In fact, if you take the drugs and don’t use the nondrug methods, lowering your blood pressure with the drugs alone provides from less to no protection to your health. Some of the drugs even harm your health besides.

Much to my surprise this email listed fewer than 9 ways to do that. In fact, in some ways it could be said to only have three.

Practice an effective stress relief routine.

Take certain supplements that lower high blood pressure.

And, try acupuncture.

The good news is that their first two methods were pretty good.

Last Friday, we posted on 6 ways to lower high blood pressure.

Here are several more:

7. Don’t smoke or be around second hand tobacco smoke.

This one is very important.

Even a few minutes exposure to tobacco smoke increases your blood pressure within minutes of your exposure.

But the long term consequences are much worse. Smoking or second hand smoke work in several ways to build up plaque in your blood vessels. This does the reverse of losing weight or taking supplements that relax your blood vessels. The smaller internal diameter this leaves in your blood vessels and the stiffer blood vessels this produces directly cause your blood pressure to go up and tend to prevent the supplements that might have relaxed your blood vessels from being able to do the job.

Even worse than that, being around tobacco smoke TRIGGERS heart attacks that people otherwise might not have had.

So, not only does tobacco smoke tend to permanently increase your blood pressure, it tends to directly cause one of the things you are trying to lower your high blood pressure to prevent.

8. Type 2 diabetes and the insulin resistance that eventually will cause type 2 diabetes if it’s not reversed, both boost your blood pressure and make it more likely that any high blood pressure you have will cause a heart attack.

So, eat very little sugar; eat or drink no high fructose corn syrup drink or eat no artificial sweeteners as they act as a drug to boost your appetite for sweets, & eat virtually no refined grain foods. Also do strength training at least twice a week and interval cardio at least three days a week. Build up to them gradually but be sure to do them. Those two sets of actions tend to turn off insulin resistance and type 2 diabetes or prevent it.

It also helps that on every day you exercise, your blood pressure averages lower than on days you don’t. So doing some kind of exercise 6 or 7 days a week even if it’s as mild as Tai Chi or walking also helps directly.

You can also get some positive effects by taking 200 to 400 mcg a day of chromium polynicotinate and 200 or more mg a day of alpha lipoic acid.

There are other supplements that can help lower high blood sugar. But these two have other health benefits and are more widely available and better understood. So, at least start with them.

9. Eat wild caught fish high in omega 3 oils (farmed fish comes with an astounding load of pollutants and far less omega 3 oils. Take purified fish oil, omega 3 supplements, and DHA.

In addition, eat far less grains, even whole grains, and no foods made from refined grains. And, use extra virgin olive oil only. Do NOT eat oils such as soy or corn or safflower or canola oil that are high in omega 6 oils. Cut back or cut out eating fatty meats from grain fed animals as it is loaded with omega 6 from the grains.

Doing both sets of things both lowers high blood pressure and lowers inflammation. It also tends to lower your triglyceride levels. That in turn is directly preventative for heart attacks in addition. So these two sets of actions both lower your high blood pressure and one of the risks you are lowering your high blood pressure to prevent!

10. If your HDL is low or your LDL is high, do all the things on this list as every one of them will help improve this.

In addition, do things that increase your HDL besides exercise. Eat berries and if you aren’t allergic, eat nuts. Take lecithin or choline or eat a few egg yolks or whole eggs each week. Eating only extra virgin olive oil also helps keep your HDL high. Consider taking 300 mg of niacin once or twice a day after meals and taking 300 mg once or twice a day of inositol hexaniacinate, “no flush” niacin. If you can limit yourself to moderation, drink one or two glasses of red wine with dinner.

And be sure to do the interval cardio and strength training each week.

Each of those things tends to increase HDL.

In addition, eat more nonstarchy vegetables and apples or no sugar apple sauce and beans and lentils. And, if you must have some whole grains eat non-instant oatmeal. Each of these foods has soluble fiber that helps lower high LDL cholesterol.

Lastly, eat absolutely ZERO foods that contain transfats labeled as higher than 0.0 AND no foods listing hydrogenated oil as an ingredient.

These junk oils cause heart disease, and just like cigarettes and tobacco smoke, they cause plaque build up in your blood vessels. This is also shown by having your HDL go down and your triglycerides and LDL go up.

For other LDL lowering consider taking beta sitosterol or other sterol supplements.

(By the way, this is more protective than eating margarine with sterols AND this whole set of things is both safer and more side effect free than taking statin drugs and provides much better heart attack prevention that taking statin drugs.)

11. Other effective ways to lower high blood pressure.

Two other supplements that lower high blood pressure at least some are hawthorn and celery seed extract. Hawthorn also helps prevent or improve heart failure; and celery seed extract also lowers inflammation, particularly in joints. So, if one of your motivations in lowering your blood pressure is heart attack prevention, these two are good supplements to add.

Eating minced, fresh garlic with food and/or taking the deodorized garlic supplements also lowers high blood pressure. Doing one or both of these things plus taking 1500 mg of vitamin C daily may reduce the plaque in your arteries.

And, because it helps your blood vessels relax and be responsive, it has been found to help lower high blood pressure.