Lower blood pressure without drugs....

Today's post: Friday, 8-1-2008

High blood pressure is both a warning sign that you have significant health problems that will get worse unless you take action AND high blood pressure can harm you directly if it stays too high or goes high enough.

Most doctors prescribe drugs for people they see who have high blood pressure.

The bad news is that most of the time, the quality of life issues from those drugs are so bad, many people refuse to keep taking them while those that do take them wish they didn’t have to. It feels like making yourself sick on purpose. And, it doesn’t help that many of these drugs tend to ruin your sex life.

Worse, some of these drugs cause real harm from fainting to type II diabetes to heart failure.

Even worse than that, sometimes even taking 3 of these mixed review drugs at the same time doesn’t reduce high blood pressure to desirable levels.

And, worst of all, taking the drugs without addressing the other health issues that may be causing the high blood pressure or that it will make worse, provides little actual protection for your health.

Mercifully, there ARE better ways to lower high blood pressure that do NOT have these problems.

We will soon release an eBook on all of these methods.

(Keep reading our posts as many of them fit those themes. And, we will announce it here when this eBook is available to you.)

Here’s one of those methods in brief.

The eBook will go into much greater detail on it.

It was in the online health news last Wednesday, 7-30-2008

“NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Research shows that boosting levels of potassium in the diet may lower a person's risk of developing high blood pressure and may decrease blood pressure in people who already have "hypertension." “

Doctors and researchers have known for quite a long time that the DASH II diet that combines a LOT of nonstarchy vegetables and a moderately high intake of whole fruit with moderate and consistent salt restriction reliably lowers high blood pressure. (It also limits saturated fat.)

This diet even optimizes “normal” blood pressure and lowers it to desirable levels in people who do not have high blood pressure.

And, one of these researchers and a foremost expert on treating high blood pressure, Mark Houston, MD & his colleague, Dr. Karen J. Harper , co- wrote a recent July 2008 special supplement to The Journal of Clinical Hypertension explaining one of the major reasons why this is so.

The DASH II diet replaces foods like potato chips and commercial baked goods and other snacks plus excess salting of food that each produce a high intake of sodium salt with the plentiful vegetables and whole fruit that is high in potassium and recommends very light use of added salt. (The 1500 mg a day limit it suggests is NOT no salt at all. It does allow moderate salt intake occasionally.)

It seems that one of the drivers of high blood pressure is that the much higher levels of potassium our bodies evolved to ingest combined with modest amounts of sodium salt produces good health and optimal blood pressure while the reverse that many people have been eating instead produces high blood pressure and health problems.

These two doctors pointed out that point out that a healthy intake of potassium is thought to be one reason why vegetarians and peoples still eating traditional foods instead of junk food have a very low incidence of heart disease.

They also state that in such peoples still eating traditional foods instead of junk food only 1 percent of those people get high blood pressure. In contrast, in industrialized societies today where most people still eat diets high in processed foods and large amounts of dietary sodium 1 in 3 people have high blood pressure.

(That’s about 33 times as many people per every 100 people.)

They point out that the typical American diet most people still eat contains at least double the sodium and half the potassium it should to produce good health and avoid high blood pressure.

(Most unfortunately, this is still becoming the case in countries all over the world with very bad medical problems and increase medical costs resulting.)

The way that many people in the United States have been eating gives them twice as much sodium as potassium while the diet, that humans evolved to eat that tends to produce optimum blood pressure and good health contains five times as much potassium as sodium.

Unfortunately, the list of foods too many people still eat every day includes bread, desserts, and snacks that all contain a lot of sodium salt and hardly any potassium.

And, these same people all too often eat virtually no green or nonstarchy vegetables or whole fruit on most days each week.

The research of Doctor Houston and others show that reversing this eating pattern protects your health and either keeps your blood pressure at optimal levels or moves it that direction.

The even better news is that making this change tends to help people lose fat without becoming hungry.

And, losing this excess fat (or not gaining it in the first place) also protects your health and either keeps your blood pressure at optimal levels or moves it that direction.

Almost every nonstarchy and unsalted vegetable or whole fruit is high in potassium while virtually all refined grain foods, packaged foods, snacks etc now sold in stores are surprisingly high in added salt.

Clearly eliminating such foods at least 95 % if the time and replacing them with nonstarchy vegetables and whole fruit will help to lower high blood pressure.

One of the nice things is that many of the kinds of whole fruit that are high in potassium taste good. Bananas and cantaloupe are two examples.

Avocados are high in potassium. And, they have mostly heart health OK monosaturated oils.

And, though vegetables such as raw carrots or broccoli are less enticing, they have incredible other health benefits and are the most effective at helping you lose or prevent gaining excess bodyfat.

Chocolate helps lower high blood pressure....

Today's post: Thursday, 7-3-2008

We’ve posted before on how dark chocolate & unsweetened cocoa have been shown to lower high blood pressure & increase blood flow.

We’ve posted that this only works if you eat or drink the chocolate without milk.

And, we’ve posted that the effect of the unsweetened coca is greater than the dark chocolate. (Apparently, the added fat & sugar in the dark chocolate candy slightly interfere with the effect. The effect still happens but not quite as strongly.)

Kelley Herring is an expert on nutrition for good health & recipes containing OK & health beneficial foods.

She writes for the health section of Early to Rise & for its Total Health Breakthroughs also.

I checked out her website & found an article on the health effects of dark chocolate & unsweetened coca.

I liked it enough that I’ve reprinted it here.

If you like it or want new ideas for recipes containing OK & health beneficial foods, by all means check out her website.: http://www.healinggourmet.com/

Here’s the article:

“A Sweet Way to Lower Blood Pressure More benefits of decadent dark cocoa

More good news for chocoholics: dark chocolate, a good source of powerful antioxidant phenols can help reduce blood pressure.

A recent study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association included six men and seven women aged 55-64 with mildly high blood pressure. On average, the participant’s systolic blood pressure (the top number) was 153 and diastolic blood pressure (the bottom number) was 84.

Every day for two weeks, the study participants ate a 100-gram piece of dark chocolate. They balanced its hefty 480 calories by not eating other foods similar in nutrients and calories. Half of the participants received dark chocolate, while half got white chocolate.

At the end of the study, those who ate dark chocolate saw a significant drop in blood pressure (by an average of 5 points for systolic and 2 points for diastolic blood pressure). Those who ate white chocolate experienced no benefit.

To enjoy the health benefits and delicious flavor of dark chocolate, you don't need to eat a 480 calorie candy bar. In fact, 1 tablespoon of dark cocoa has a mere 80 calories, with all of the chocolatey goodness and health benefits.”

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This shows a definite but small effect on lowering high blood pressure.

And it explains why it may be best to use unsweetened cocoa a good bit more often than dark chocolate candy. You not only take less calories, you take in less sugar. Both of these things help you get the health effect without becoming fatter if you mostly use the unsweetened cocoa.

For more things that lower high blood pressure without drugs, see our post for this coming Monday.

And, keep reading our blog. Within a few weeks, we will announce an eBook on how to lower high blood pressure without drugs listing the most effective things that do this & many others.

Heavy drinking DOES cause high blood pressure....

Today's post: Monday, 5-19-2008

It was recently reported that sustained heavy drinking does cause high blood pressure.

In particular, a recent study was announced that showed that sustained heavy drinking caused the blood vessels of both men & women to become stiffer & less pliable thus creating extra drag on the system & requiring more pressure to drive blood through. This would tend to increase both the pulse pressure, or difference between the readings, AND the lower number or diastolic reading.

That means a desirable blood pressure of 115 over 75 might become 163 over 100 after years of heavy drinking—just from this one effect. So if the person also gained 35 pounds, ate very little vegetables or fruit & never exercised, they might well be at 177 over 105 -- or more. (Without the heavy drinking they might still only be at 129 over 80.)

Heavy drinking for men is over 3 drinks a day. For women, it is between 1 & 1/2 & twice that, more than one, or two or too often.

Also, the weekly total makes a big difference. Heavy drinking for men is 14 or over per week while for women it tends to be in the 8 to 10 or over range.

And, of course, it makes a difference how old you are, how many years you drink heavily, & how healthy you are otherwise.

However, since heavy drinking both harms your health AND increases your chances of being in a serious accident, it makes good sense to avoid it. And, it’s clear that heavy drinking every day of the week for years is really harmful.

Unfortunately, the report of this research did NOT say HOW heavy drinking caused this effect. It could be that it increased the microscopic damage in the blood vessels of the heavy drinkers and harmed their lining or endothelium. Or it could be that it increased their inflammation. Or that it might increase the amount of plaque or calcified plaque that got deposited in their blood vessels. Or it might do all of the above.

It did say that heavy drinking did tend to damage the left ventricle of the heart in women who were heavy drinkers & to produce an enlarged heart.

One or two drinks for men several days a week with one being more common or one drinks for women several days a week still looks like it produces more good than harm by reducing stress & increasing HDL.

However, this new research confirms that drinking a lot more than that DOES cause high blood pressure & related damage.

Blood Pressure Drug Weakens Bones....

Today's post: Tuesday, 4-15-2008

I found the article below in the Yahoo Health News earlier today. (It was posted late Monday.) It has some significant implications I then add below it.

“Blood pressure drug reduces bone density in study Mon Apr 14

CHICAGO (Reuters) - Powerful diuretics used to control blood pressure can also steal calcium from the bones and cause significant bone loss in men who take them, researchers reported on Monday.

Older men who used the drugs the most had triple the bone loss of men who never used them, the researchers reported in the Archives of Internal Medicine.

They found a direct correlation between use of the drugs and bone loss in men -- putting them at risk of osteoporosis, which can cause broken hips and other broken bones.

Though osteoporosis is more common in women than men, one in five Americans with the bone-weakening condition is a man -- and as many as 2 million American men suffer from it.

Doctors should keep an eye out for this problem in men taking the drugs, said Dr. Lionel Lim of Griffin Hospital, in Derby, Connecticut, who led the study.

One of the most common brand names is Lasix, and these so-called loop diuretics are also sold under the generic name furosemide. Diuretics work to lower blood pressure by removing water from the blood via the kidneys.

With less blood circulating, the blood does not have to pump so hard. The kidneys also filter out more sodium, potassium and, evidently, calcium. The drugs are especially effective in patients with heart failure, relieving the characteristic swollen ankles and breathlessness.

Lim studied nearly 3,300 men aged 65 and older, about 8 percent of whom had taken the drugs either regularly or from time to time.

Lim's team measured the men's hip bone density at the start and again roughly 4-1/2 years later.

Bone loss averaged 0.78 percent annually among the 84 men who used loop diuretics regularly, compared to 0.33 percent among non-users and 0.58 percent among the 181 intermittent users.

Previous studies have associated diuretic use with a patient's risk of breaking a hip or fracturing another bone.

"However, there is uncertainty as to whether this increased fracture risk is attributable to negative effects on bone mineral density, fall-related mechanisms (such as dizziness and low blood pressure when standing up), or associated (illnesses)," Lim wrote in his report.

The men taking diuretics in the study tended to be heavier, more sedentary, and more likely to suffer from other maladies including heart disease than non-users.

(Reporting by Andrew Stern; Editing by Maggie Fox and Eric Beech)”

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Doctors should prescribe diuretics for people with fluid retention as the article mentioned for heart failure patients.

However, since the diuretics tend to be cheap drugs & reduce blood pressure reliably many doctors tend to prescribe them first before seeing if other drugs are needed.

This article suggests an important reason to do otherwise.

It looks to make much better sense to initially prescribe the ARB’s in low doses or ARB’s in combination with calcium channel blockers with both at low doses AND to prescribe lifestyle upgrades.

And lifestyle upgrades may make even better choices.:

The Dash diet with moderate salt restriction that cuts out junk food & excessive fatty meats in favor of lean meats & poultry in moderation, fish, beans, nuts, & low fat dairy AND includes plentiful vegetables & whole fresh fruit is clearly indicated.

When people who eat badly upgrade to it, they experience blood pressure reduction similar to taking a blood pressure drug AND with NO drug costs or side effects.

And, just recently it was reported that this diet protects against heart attacks & strokes in both people with high blood pressure AND people with normal blood pressure.

Since the whole point of lowering high blood pressure is to prevent heart attacks & strokes & other health problems -- & patients with high blood pressure tend to not eat this way added to the blood pressure lowering effects of eating this way, this is the first prescription I think doctors should give most people they see who have high blood pressure.

In addition, being overfat, “heavy,” has been found to create high blood pressure notably by creating endothelial dysfunction which stiffens blood vessels & impairs their ability to relax.

Eating a Dash diet with moderate salt restriction combined with totally stopping junk foods & soft drinks and getting enough of the right regular exercises has been proven to prevent people from getting fat or to help them lose excess fat.

In addition, exercise lowers blood pressure both overall and on the days people exercise & it tends to improve endothelial dysfunction.

The patients in this study clearly needed both the Dash diet and regular exercise prescribed FIRST since they had high blood pressure, were fat, & were sedentary -- & had higher than average heart attack risks.

This would be more protective than the diuretics alone. And, the calcium in the DASH diet plus weight bearing or strength exercise INCREASES bone density. So even if there was a need for diuretics, they would tend to produce less bone weakening if patients followed this lifestyle prescription.

In addition, when doctors prescribe blood pressure medication a huge number of people simply won’t take them or will stop taking them due to harsh side effects. (Stopping blood pressure drugs suddenly is unsafe but people often do exactly that if they take drugs with heavy side effects.) Things like fainting when you stand up from taking something that is supposed to make you healthier is something many people simply won’t tolerate. For most people, it looks to be unnecessary.

So unless the blood pressure is quite high, it makes the most sense to prescribe the drugs that will produce the most lowering with minimal side effects.

The ARB’s in low doses or ARB’s in combination with calcium channel blockers with both at low doses tend to have that combination.

Even better, there is a new drug out called ExForge that combines them so a patient only needs to take one pill.

But the things to prescribe first & keep up are the Dash diet with moderate salt restriction and regular exercise. Those are protective even more than the drugs. They make people healthier if done right. And, they make people feel healthier instead of sicker.

Diuretics have their place. Some patients need them for other reasons as we’ve discussed; & some people do need them to be used to lower blood pressure when nothing else is working well enough. But they should NOT be the first or main prescription for high blood pressure for most people in my view.

There are also supplements that lower blood pressure directly & supplements that reverse some of the causes of high blood pressure that can be used.

That’s a big subject we plan to do an eBook about soon as well.

Vaccine may treat high blood pressure....

Today's post: Monday, 3-10-2008

High blood pressure is both an indicator of underlying problems, see the next paragraph for some of them, & is a direct cause of problems as well as a risk for heart attack, stroke, & kidney damage & other problems.

(Being way too fat & heavy; sleep apnea, eating too much salt & too few vegetables & fruits; plaque build up in your blood vessels, lack of exercise, exposure to some pollutants, taking over the counter pain drugs, unrelieved stress, blood vessel damage from too high levels of blood sugar, & too much noise at night all are known causes of high blood pressure.)

If you have it, you need to check the potential causes to reverse those you can. And, you need to bring it down as close to the ideal of 115 over 75 as you can to best protect your health regardless of your progress on the causes.

The problems with lowering it with drugs are many however. Having it is mostly unnoticeable to you unless it gets horribly & dangerously high. And, the most commonly prescribed drugs often make you feel worse & less healthy than before; & many cause sexual function problems.

So many people who have high blood pressure refuse to take the drugs or stop taking them. Even worse, taking them irregularly or stopping taking them suddenly is in itself quite dangerous.

And, drugs are expensive. Worse, many of the most commonly prescribed blood pressure drugs actually have health harming side effects.

Not only that, but to protect your health, the most important times of day to have your blood pressure be low enough are at night & early in the morning. And, though some kinds are a bit better, the drugs often don’t do that well.

That means that a vaccine that lowers high blood pressure; has few side effects; & lowers blood pressure best at night & early mornings would be extremely valuable indeed.

It may now exist & might be available soon.

I found this news on Yahoo online Health News from Health Day, dated, 3-6-2008.:

“We found the vaccine was well-tolerated, and it did lower blood pressure in hypertensive people," said vaccine inventor Martin Bachmann, of Cytos Biotechnology in Schlieren, Switzerland.

Currently, there are two problems with high blood pressure drugs, Bachmann said. "On the one hand, people just don't take them, and, on other hand, the drugs don't work very well early in the morning," he said.

In the United States, only about one-third of people with high blood pressure (also known as hypertension) have their blood pressure under control, according to background information for the study. Many people don't take their blood pressure medications because of side effects, concerns about the long-term effects of the drugs, and their lack of perceptible symptoms, Bachmann noted.

"Our vaccine would only have to be taken maybe twice or three times a year, not every day. In addition, it works best early in the morning," Bachmann said.

In the new study, Bachmann's team presented the results of an early trial of 72 patients with mild to moderate high blood pressure who were randomly assigned to receive the vaccine at two different doses or a placebo.

The patients' blood pressure was measured before the trial and 14 weeks after the trial began. The outcome the researchers were looking for was whether the vaccine was safe and well-tolerated.

Bachmann's team found that patients who received the higher dose of vaccine had a drop in their systolic blood pressure of 9 mm Hg and a 4 mm Hg drop in their diastolic blood pressure. The blood pressure drop was particularly significant in the early morning, where patients showed a 25 mm Hg drop in systolic blood pressure and a 13 mm Hg drop in diastolic blood pressure, compared with patients receiving a placebo.

Overall, the vaccine was well tolerated, with only 10 patients reporting flu-like symptoms after the injection. Such reactions are common with several vaccines, the researchers noted. In addition, some patients experienced mild irritation at the injection site.

The study results are published in the March 8 issue of The Lancet.

More extensive testing is needed before the vaccine could be made available to the public, Bachmann said. "We are moving on to eventually large trials," he said.

One expert thinks this finding could be a breakthrough in helping patients control their blood pressure.

"Poorly controlled blood pressure remains a worldwide health-care problem and contributes greatly to heart attacks, strokes, and cardiovascular deaths," said Dr. Gregg C. Fonarow, a professor of cardiology at the University of California, Los Angeles.

Although there are lifestyle modifications and a number of effective and reasonably well-tolerated medications that can help control blood pressure, many patients don't adhere to their regimens in a way that works effectively, Fonarow said. "A (vaccination) for controlling blood pressure, if proven to be safe and effective, could represent an important therapeutic advance," he said.

This study is the first to show promising data with a vaccine against angiotensin II, a potent constrictor of blood vessels, in patients with mild to moderate hypertension….”

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Drugs called ARB’s, that have this effect, are one of the best kinds drugs to control high blood pressure as they seem to work & tend to have the fewest side effects for your quality of life & your health.

However, the doses needed, even of ARB’s, to get the kind of early morning improvement of this vaccine are high enough to literally make you feel sick & depleted.

Only about one seventh of these people who were given this vaccine had any side effects. And the people who did had temporary side effects only.

If this passes safety screens & becomes available, it will be one the very first good treatments for high blood pressure available.

1. Keep watching to see if it gets approved. I will & will do a post here if it does.

2. I’m also working on an eBook listing the nondrug methods that lower high blood pressure, many of which turn off the causes of high blood pressure & almost all of which have other health benefits & virtually no side effects.

If you’d like me to email you when it’s ready, email me at: iehealth @ aol.com .

(I’ve listed my email so you have to delete the added spaces to use it. I understand that protects me from “spam robots.”)

How to fight high blood pressure in cold weather ….

Today's post: Thursday, 11-8-2007

I recently read a report that if your blood pressure is at all too high it tends to go up about eight percent during the cold weather in the winter.

That’s enough to cause problems potentially. An almost OK 129 over 79 in summer weather that becomes 8 % higher in winter is: 139 over 85, which is much less OK.

A higher blood pressure of 150 over 95 that may be safe to treat with nondrug methods only, particularly if you use effective methods, might easily become 162 over 103 in the winter with this eight percent increase.

With blood pressure that high, almost all doctors prescribe drugs as it will begin to damage you fast enough you need to bring down your blood pressure right now.

The good news is that the report listed why this might be so. And, you can reverse many of these causes.

If you get a reading of higher than 160 over 100, you would be well advised to get the drugs first.

1. When you are outside your surface blood vessels tighten to preserve warmth.

So, try to be outside less if you can when it’s really cold. Dress a bit more warmly than you might have otherwise. (Adding a hat or a hat that covers your ears does a surprisingly good job if you haven’t yet tried it.) Last, do your best to keep moving when you are outside. That keeps you warmer & keeps your internal blood vessels more open.

2. Cold medicines & pain killers increase blood pressure. Many people don’t know that. And, taking pain killers may slow your immune system so you stay sick longer. Many people don’t know that either.

So, try not to take any cold medicines & pain killers. If you do take them, do so as short a time as you can manage. Drink LOTS of water instead. Doctors say that but they hardly ever do a good job of how powerful it really is. You do still feel sick & yucky. But if you do drink about twice as much water as normal, you remain a lot more functional and you recover much faster. It also helps prevent complications & worse.

Also, get a bit more rest & pace yourself.

3. People get depressed more in dark weather. Then they eat more bad foods & exercise less.

So, if it’s not too cold or dangerous out, take a 10 or 15 minute walk at about Noon. It doesn’t LOOK like there’s much light. (Your eyes adjust to the light level.) But light meter readings and actual experience prove there is enough light then to prevent light deprivation depression (SAD, or Seasonal Affective Disorder.) Spending about 30 to 45 minutes each morning in your bathroom or kitchen also works if you have installed very bright full spectrum light bulbs. You also get some exercise.

You can also eat fish that is safe to eat & is quite high in omega 3 oils or take lots of omega 3 supplements and get regular exercise several times a week. Those two things are effective depression lifters.

Last, even if you are depressed, make sure to keep exercising & when you need food for stress break eat health enhancing foods that are tasty or high in fat instead of sugary foods with bad fats.

Walnuts, pecans, almonds, avocados, & guacamole on veggies you like can work. So can tasty soups & chili that you like that are made with health OK ingredients like lentils, pinto bean, & extra virgin olive oil & very little if any salt. Fresh fruit you like also works. The fiber & micronutrients prevent the sugars in them from doing much harm. And, fruit like sour cherries, blueberries, strawberries, black berries, & kiwi fruit can be very enjoyable.

4. Many people only get enough exercise when they can be outside. And, in cold, dark, & windy weather they stay inside more. (The staying inside more might be a good idea. But the lack of exercise is NOT.)

So, find at home exercises that fit your schedule & do them. Or, make sure to go to the gym for half an hour of actual exercise when you are there at least twice a week.

5. People eat more fat gain inducing foods during the holidays.

So, make absolutely sure to keep up regular exercise; eat right for virtually EVERY meal that isn’t a holiday feast; eat the health OK foods like salad with just a bit of dressing, vegetable dishes, & fresh fruit first (you automatically eat a bit less of the other stuff); focus more on good conversations with the people than the food because enjoying that lifts your need to reward yourself with just the food & also makes the fat gain foods you do eat less bad for you; & cut back just a little on the really fattening stuff. It’s OK to love those foods. Just eat one of some of them instead of two of all of them.

Think this doesn’t work? If you take these steps it does. The year I did a good job on them all, I didn’t gain an ounce.

6. Since your blood pressure may go up in the winter, this is a great time to begin doing the things that lower blood pressure without drugs.

Our upcoming website & eBook on these methods will be out soon. We’ll announce it here as soon as it’s ready.

But if you know some of these methods already, be sure to do them all this time of year.

Here are some quick ones: Limit your alcohol to two drinks a day instead of way more. Cut WAY back on salt at every meal that’s not a holiday celebration. Try to stop eating ALL commercial snacks & baked goods when you aren’t at a holiday celebration. Eat whole, unprocessed foods fresh or frozen that you thaw out instead of packaged foods if you can possibly manage it. Take 400 to 600 mg a day of magnesium. Eat lots of vegetables. And, eat significantly more high potassium foods like avocado, banana, kiwifruit, oranges, berries, & orange juice. Be sure to get regular exercise several times a week. Reach out to people more & socialize more. And be good to the people around you.

Lowering Blood Pressure without drugs protects your health best ….

Today's post: Tuesday, 9-25-2007

Today’s good news is not only do many nondrug methods to lower your blood pressure work, if you do the most important ones & several of the most effective ones, the chances are excellent you won’t need to take blood pressure lowering drugs or you can gradually stop taking them if you already take them now.

The even more startling good news is that doing this protects your health BETTER than taking the drugs.

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Before I explain why this is the case, two important cautions are in order.

1. If your blood pressure is at or above 150 over 100 or 160 over 90, what doctors call stage II hypertension, you DO need to take the drugs – at least until you get the nondrug methods working enough to take over the job.

Why? Because blood pressure that high begins to damage you & threatens even worse problems – even death. It begins to damage your heart; it may damage your kidneys & cause you to need dialysis to stay alive, & it threatens you with sharply increased risk of strokes, a heart attack, or a burst aortic aneurysm. And, those can kill you quite quickly.

In addition, in about five percent of the cases, there is a specific & possibly treatable medical problem causing blood pressure that high. This means that seeing your doctor to rule those out or treat them & to get drugs makes really good sense for higher level blood pressure that’s this high or higher.

So, even though drugs to lower your blood pressure are NOT the best initial treatment below that level or for long term treatment, for people with blood pressure that high, they can be lifesaving. And, the research backs this up. Giving patients with this sky high blood pressure treatment with drugs does lower mortality rates. (It doesn’t do so at lower blood pressure levels. I suspect that’s because of the health damaging side effects of the drugs cancels out the benefits at lower levels.)

2. If you are taking blood pressure reducing medicine now, it is NOT safe to simply stop taking it. Blood pressure reducing medicine works by pushing down or preventing a process that tends to increase blood pressure. So, your body often is pushing back. And, if you quit instead of gradually reducing the dose, you may well get surging super high blood pressure. And, that can be quite dangerous & even kill you.

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Why are the nondrug methods better than drugs in lowering high blood pressure for people with lower levels of high blood pressure & better for long term treatment for everyone?

(Lower includes readings from levels like 127 over 79 to 155 over 95 --though the higher part of the range borders on the danger level.)

The list of reasons is LONG:

1. It’s a LOT easier to keep using the nondrug methods.

People with high blood pressure quite often feel healthy & normal. Then, after they take the drugs, they find themselves feeling spacey, tired, & lacking in energy. Or they almost faint when they stand up. And, many men experience sexual problems including impotence or soft erections. With some of the medicines people develop a hacking, dry cough that continues as long as they take the drug. Side effects like these sharply reduce your quality of life to put it mildly !!

So, it’s no surprise that as many as half the people who start taking these drugs, stop taking them despite the real risks of doing so.

Contrast that with the nondrug methods: One of them increases energy for many people who use it. Another makes people feel mellow & refreshed after it’s used. Yet another has proven to IMPROVE the sex lives of people using it. And, even better, there are hardly any side effects for most of them.

On this factor alone, it’s hardly a contest.

And, there’s lots more….

2. If you use the most important nondrug methods & several of the most effective ones, you can lower your blood pressure as well -- & even better than – you can by taking drugs.

This specifically includes lowering blood pressure to desirable levels when drugs alone cannot for some of the methods.

The reason is simple. The drugs change your internal processes to remove the symptom of high blood pressure but seldom address the causes of it. Most of the nondrug methods work by reducing or eliminating the causes of the high blood pressure.

3. Similarly, while taking hypertension drugs to lower high blood pressure delivers some health protection to you, particularly at higher levels of blood pressure, doing so often causes other health problems.

This sometimes includes dehydration, increased levels of blood glucose or of LDL cholesterol (which both tend to harm your blood vessels & heart), & congestive heart failure.

In contrast to that, not only do the nondrug methods work to lower your blood pressure, virtually every one delivers other health benefits.

Here again, this is usually because the nondrug methods are improving or reversing the causes of the high blood pressure.

4. A corollary of this last point is that, while taking drugs for hypertension for higher levels of hypertension will give you some protection for your health, it is NOT enough by itself to give you strong health protection.

By contrast, if you use the most important nondrug methods well & use several of the most effective ones, you WILL get strong health protection.

This is precisely because the nondrug methods improve or eliminate the causes of high blood pressure & deliver the other health benefits.

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For these reasons, we are now writing an eBook & interactive online course on using the nondrug methods to reduce high blood pressure.

The methods we are including it in it have been tested as effective -- including some tested with double blind studies. And, the doctors who are most familiar with them endorse them.

As soon as it’s available, we’ll announce it here.

Successful fat loss improves your stress response ….

Today's post: Monday, 7-30-2007

Successful fat loss improves your stress response. Even better, changing the way you eat can do both.

I found this in today’s Early to Rise for Monday, 7-30-2007.

(My comments follow the article. Read those for more tips on how to lose fat & improve your stress response.)

(This article appears courtesy of Early To Rise, the Internet’s most popular health, wealth, and success e-zine. For a complimentary subscription, visit http://www.earlytorise.com/..)

“How to Control a Silent Killer

By Craig Ballantyne

If you're unhealthily overweight, you probably know it. You also know if you have unhealthy habits, like smoking or excessive drinking. And if you're not as fit as you should be, you probably recognize that too. But high blood pressure - the silent killer that can lead directly to heart attacks and death - goes unnoticed every day.

Australian researchers have found an easy way to control this silent killer.

The researchers had three groups of men complete a mental stress test before and after a 12-week diet program. One group of men changed nothing in their diets, another group ate a diet high in fruits and vegetables and low in dairy products, and a third group ate a low-fat diet. By the end of 12 weeks, both groups that had changed their diets lost an average of nine pounds, while the control group remained at about the same weight.

The subjects who lost weight also reduced their resting systolic blood pressure (the higher number in the normal 120 over 80 blood pressure reading).

Furthermore, in the groups that had changed their diets, blood pressure returned to normal six minutes faster after the stress tests than in the control group.

The scientists concluded that weight loss helps men control their blood pressure better during times of stress, which is likely to lower the risk of cardiovascular disease in the long term. So if you have high blood pressure, add more fruits and vegetables to your diet and lose weight. And if you don't know what your blood pressure is, get it checked immediately.”

My comments:

1. This improved stress relief also tends to prevent higher future blood pressure readings. And, the added fiber, potassium & magnesium in the added fruits and vegetables also help lower high blood pressure & prevent higher future blood pressure readings.

Second, regular vigorous exercise where you rest a short while afterwards, also allows you to recover from stress more quickly. As you become fit, your recovery time gets faster. Even better, it takes more to create a higher pulse rate.

Both these effects also tend to lower high blood pressure & prevent higher future blood pressure readings.

And, since regular exercise, particularly this kind of vigorous cardio & this kind of strength training, also trim off excess bodyfat, by both eating more vegetables & eating less unhealthful fats AND doing this kind of exercise cuts you can cut more fat from your body which lowers blood pressure more & improves your stress response more.

So, for good stress response & getting rid of excess fat, eat right & exercise regularly.

You’ll also have lower & healthier blood pressure readings.

2. Recent stories report that having fat friends tends to make you fat & having trim friends tends to make you lean.

Even better, if you have a friend who successfully loses fat & stays your friend, you are much more likely to lose fat too.

So, make friends with lean people who eat right & exercise. Spend more time with them than with your fat friends if you can. And, once you succeed, simply let your fatter friends know you have done so.

This research suggests that you don’t need to try to sell them on getting leaner. All you have to do is keep improving yourself & let them know. Chances are they will follow you example.

3. Stay away from both regular & diet soft drinks.

Drinking more than one or two soft drinks a month, is a proven way to get fat.

If you drink regular soft drinks, you take in lots more calories & your body registers NONE of them, so you don’t eat less of everything else to compensate.

Oddly, regular drinking of diet soft drinks produces an almost identical effect research shows.

And, research released just as few days ago says the health effects of drinking diet soft drinks regularly is also as bad for your heart.

One theory explains this by saying that when your body gets the sweet taste but no sugar rush, you then overeat other things which do produce a sugar rush to compensate.

The second theory points out that the artificial sweeteners in diet soft drinks cause your metabolism to function in unhealthy ways.

And, the foods people often eat with both kinds of soft drinks tend to be high in refined grains, grain fed meat, & transfats.

So, if you want to stop being fat or avoid it and you want to stay healthy, it will also help enormously if you stop drinking soft drinks.

In fact, if you have been drinking soft drinks regularly, switching to water, tea, or even coffee, can literally help you lose enough fat to be 10 percent lighter. And, the incredible thing is, it won’t make you any hungrier.