New information on reducing high blood pressure....

Today's Post: Tuesday, 5-3-2011

Typically today, most people who have high blood pressure get prescriptions for the drugs that lower it. In addition, most doctors start with a prescription for a diuretic.

Unfortunately, this tends to be ineffective and often is unpleasant.

Why?

For these three reasons:

1. The drugs usually turn down high blood pressure at least some which can be helpful; but they do not reverse the causes of the problem. Since many of the causes can be removed, this makes the treatment far less effective at turning down the pressure to a desirable level than it could have been.

2. Taking most of the drugs is so unpleasant and lowers the quality of life of the people who take them so much that few people keep taking them.

3. High blood pressure is a contributing cause to increased risks for heart attacks and strokes. Too few doctors know what other things people with high blood pressure need to do to lower the risks of those in other ways.

The good news is that the actions that lower high blood pressure without drugs and prevent heart attacks and strokes are mostly the same. So if you know those actions and do them, you lower your blood pressure and protect your health too. Best of all, you either will need no drugs at that point or you can use lower doses of the least obnoxious drug.

Recently, I saw a story that had the percentages of people who keep taking drugs to reduce high blood pressure.

The people who stop taking one of the more unpleasant drugs then usually get no blood pressure lowering or risk reduction. To me, that gives those drugs a failing grade.

The drug that most doctors prescribe first gets a failing grade. Only 51% of the people keep taking diuretics. That means that nearly half the people get no benefit at all. Few people will put up with having to go to the bathroom to urinate twice as much as they were. In older men, who are already going twice as often as they were when they were younger it’s even worse. And, many of the people who have high blood pressure are older men. Diuretics also can cause nutrient depletion and dehydration in hot weather.

Beta blockers are far worse. They make people feel depleted and only 28% of the people keep taking them. (I’ve also seen studies that beta blockers somehow result in less health protection for most of the people who take them.)

Some people who are unusually anxious or tense or who have migraines may benefit from low doses of beta blockers. But for them, the blood pressure effects are secondary.

Ace inhibitors are not that great since only 58% of the people keep taking them. But some people get a dry cough from some kinds of ace inhibitors and some don’t. So, for some people, trying a few kinds of ace inhibitors at low doses might discover a kind of ace inhibitor that they could keep taking since they would not get the dry cough or other problems.

ARB drugs are a bit better. 65% of the people keep taking those. And, I’ve had pharmacists tell me that many of those people report few side effects from ARB drugs. So, here again, ARB drugs at low doses can work for some people.

Unfortunately, the combination of ace inhibitors and ARB drugs has problems and is not a good idea.

However, calcium channel blockers do work well with ARB drugs.

So if a low dose ARB is not enough adding a low dose calcium channel blocker can work. Then if that combination produces few side effects, taking them both can work.

In fact, there is a drug called Exforge that combines an ARB and a calcium channel blocker which is quite effective at lowering blood pressure. So, if taking low doses of each of its parts works OK for someone who needs more blood pressure lowering, the lower dose of Exforge might work. Then they could try the higher dose if needed.

So there are some drugs that might work in low doses or medium doses.

As you can see, if you protect yourself and lower your blood pressure with the nondrug methods first, you have a shot at good protection. You may not need drugs at all. And, if you do still need drugs, you can use the lower doses and kinds that produce few side effects in you.

Next time, we will post about making it time efficient for doctors to practice this kind of medicine.

For today, here are some of the key ways to reduce high blood pressure without drugs and cut your health risks from having high blood pressure.

1. If you can take the time to learn it and do a few minutes as most days first thing in the morning as part of your exercises, tai chi has a calming and stress producing effect. It also burns about as many calories as walking, so it counts as exercise too! In people with high blood pressure, at least one study found it produces decreases of 17 over 11 on the average. That’s as good as one of the better drugs. Even better, it’s been found to work on people the drugs don’t work for.

2. Taking ubiquinol up to 100 mg twice a day has also been found to lower higher blood pressure up to 16 over 10. (Ubiquinol is the form of CoQ10 your body actually uses. It’s been tested to both work at least four times better per mg AND to stay in your blood for hours longer.)

3. Tobacco smoke increases high blood pressure every time you are exposed to it. It causes high blood pressure over time. And tobacco smoke both causes and triggers heart attacks.

If you are exposed to tobacco smoke now, it’s MUCH more important for your health and avoiding heart attack risks to escape it entirely than take blood pressure drugs.

You may need to take the drugs too. But to protect yourself, the priority is escaping tobacco smoke. It harms your heart every time you are exposed to it.

4. Most people eat too much junky food and drink soft drinks. Many people wind up eating too much salt since it’s in that kind of food. There is a diet or healthful eating style called the DASH II diet that eliminates that stuff and is heavy on vegetables and protein foods that avoid boosting your inflammation. It avoids salt without eliminating it or good taste.

People who go on the DASH II diet often easily lose over 20 pounds and often drop their high blood pressure as much as taking a stronger drug.

5. Both moderate and vigorous exercise lower high blood pressure. This is so true that your blood pressure is lower on the days you exercise and higher on days you do not.

Both moderate and vigorous exercise; but vigorous exercise most of all, prevent heart attacks and strokes. You do need to build up carefully and slowly to vigorous exercise and protect your heart in other ways. But exercise is one of the best heart protections you can use. The longer you do it every week, the better your heart protection gets.

6. If you eat a DASH II diet or a Mediterranean diet with extra vegetables and less pasta AND you stop junky foods and soft drinks AND you exercise, you can lose excess fat without hunger.

If you have many pounds of excess fat, getting rid of it will reliably lower your high blood pressure.

The diet to get rid of fat lowers high blood pressure both from the good things in it and the bad things NOT in it.

Exercise that helps you get rid of fat lowers high blood pressure.

And, because your heart has so much less work when you get rid of excess fat, your blood pressure goes down even more.

So, if you use these methods to lower your high blood pressure, your health protection will be better than just taking the drugs. You may well not need the drugs at all. And, if you do still need the drugs, you can work with your doctor to use lower doses of the less obnoxious drugs.

So, it IS possible to have health protection AND lower blood pressure without taking drugs with side effects you can’t stand!