Normalise Blood Pressure Naturally!
The International Society of Hypertension accounts for 76 lakh premature deaths every year.
It is not only a killer disease, it is also one of the most expensive diseases in the world.
Why is normalizing blood pressure important?
Reduce your high blood pressure by:
1. Reduce Your Heart Attack Risk by 20-25%
2. Reduce your heart failure risk by 50%
3. Reduce Your Stroke Risk by 35-40%
What are the main causes of hypertension?
Conventional medicine does not believe in attacking the root causes of chronic diseases. It gives drugs to manage the symptoms, so you have to take the drug for life and live with all the side effects.
Whereas functional medicine believes in dealing with the root cause of disease. Hence, reversal is possible.
There are multiple factors that can lead to high blood pressure. The most notable are:
1. Being overweight or obese
“Obese people are 5 times more likely to develop high blood pressure. Lose body fat and your blood pressure will drop.” – Janet Bond Brill, Ph.D., RD, author of “Blood Pressure Down.”
A 2020 review in PubMed estimates that obesity accounts for 65 to 78% of hypertension cases.
It’s not that a normal-weight person can’t have high blood pressure, but the chances are much lower.
Knowledge Time: Why does obesity cause hypertension? Normalise Blood Pressure Naturally
Obesity can cause high blood pressure in several ways. Some of them are:
- A higher BMI usually means higher visceral fat (abdominal fat), which means extra stress on the abdominal organs and extra stress on the cardiovascular system.
- This can make you resistant to leptin. Leptin is a hormone that tells your body you’re full. Being resistant to leptin means you will feel hungrier and eat more than usual. Also, research shows that leptin resistance can lead to high blood pressure.
- Obesity can lead to insulin resistance. We’ll talk about that in a moment.
2. Insulin Resistance
(We’ll talk about sodium in a moment).
How is insulin resistance measured?
There is a very common blood test for this: HOMA-IR. HOMA is a homeostatic model of insulin resistance. This parameter is calculated using just you’re fasting blood sugar level and fasting insulin level. If your value is between 0.5-1.4, you are healthy. And if it is greater than 1.9, you have insulin resistance. A value above 2.9 will set alarm bells ringing in your head and you need to take immediate action.
If you are obese or have some chronic disease, you are more likely to be insulin resistant. I would highly recommend you get your insulin resistance tested as soon as possible.
How many times have you heard doctors talk about insulin resistance? Everyone talks about HbA1c, cholesterol levels, BP, and TSH levels, but how often have you heard of HOMA-IR? HOMA-IR is much more important than just managing symptoms. Diabetes does not cause blood sugar problems. It is only a symptom. The problem is insulin resistance. Most of the time, medical treatment does not address the root cause, but only manages the symptoms. With your blood sugar under control, you feel relieved that your disease is under control. But it doesn’t. You are measuring the wrong parameters. You need to see if your insulin levels are improving. Unfortunately, this is not the current protocol. But if you’re serious about your long-term health, you need to treat this root cause, so you don’t have to rely on medication (to manage your symptoms) for the rest of your life.
3. Internal Inflammation
Internal inflammation is another major cause of hypertension. It is not painful or visible, but it is extremely deadly. This is a fire that is kept secret by the body’s immune system as it fights off food allergens, toxins, stress and bad food. This is such an important topic that I wrote an entire blog on it. Check it out here – Intrinsic Inflammation: One of the Most Important Blood Markers for Disease Risk
4. STRESS
Stress increases blood pressure. duration Everyone knows about it. But it is not enough to know. We must work. If you have high blood pressure, you need to take corrective measures. Meditation, exercise, socializing, engaging in hobbies, and going on vacation can help you relax and reduce stress. Also, it’s good to maintain a gratitude journal. We tend to focus only on the things that we are missing in our lives, but rarely notice the many gifts that we have received. It is important to be grateful and if you are grateful, there is not much room for stress.
In terms of herbs, Ashwagandha is beneficial for stress management. But if your stress levels are too high, you should see a doctor.
5. Sedentary Lifestyle
Again, everyone knows that a sedentary lifestyle is the cause of several diseases including hypertension. 5 days a week for 30 minutes of some activity is recommended. And ideally, it should incorporate both strength training and cardio.
I know you’re busy but there are many ways to stay active even in the busiest of lifestyles such as walking while talking, taking the stairs instead of the elevator, and if you have a desk job, standing for an hour.
6. Alcohol and Smoking
There is no new information, but still very important to normalize blood pressure. If you can drink, red wine is the best choice because of its high resveratrol, an extremely powerful antioxidant. Limit it to 1-2 glasses and a couple of days a week.
What is the most important nutrition?
1. Sodium: Usual suspect
Salt is an important nutrient and has been fought over throughout history. It was once a form of legal tender and Roman soldiers were once given salt. Actually, the word salary comes from the Latin word for salt. As a food preservative, it encouraged agricultural growth long before the refrigerator was invented.
But too much of anything is bad. And that’s the problem with salt.
Everyone knows that too much salt is bad for health, especially for hypertensive patients. This is bad because of the high sodium content of salt. Each gram of salt contains 400 milligrams of sodium.
The general ideal recommendation for sodium is 2400 mg/day (1 teaspoon of salt). The American Heart Association (AHA) recommends no more than 1500 mg of sodium in your diet per day, especially for people with high blood pressure. Most of us eat much more than that. It is estimated that an average person consumes 4000-6000 mg of sodium per day.
Sodium is a charged particle and electrical charges attract water. Thus, it pulls fluid from the tissues into the arteries and thus increases the blood volume. With a high volume of blood, the heart has to work harder to pump it and the pressure against the walls of blood vessels increases. This leads to the narrowing of the blood vessels in the long run.
Therefore, the first drug of choice for high blood pressure is a diuretic that reduces the body’s water content.
What Does Research Tell Us About Sodium?
It was found that systolic BP increased with age by an average of 7 mm Hg per decade after the age of 30 in those who consumed more than 4000 mg of sodium per day. It may not seem like much, but within a decade or two, the average person develops hypertension.
The good news is that cutting back on salt can lower blood pressure. And that too in just 4 weeks. A meta-analysis of 28 clinical trials involving nearly 3000 people showed that reducing salt intake to 5 g/day reduced blood pressure by an average of 5/3 mmHg in hypertensive patients.
A study published in the New England Journal of Medicine found that if we all reduced our salt intake to 3 g/day (1200 mg sodium), there would be about 100,000 fewer deaths from heart disease each year.
Another study found that if Americans were to reduce their salt intake by 10%, it would save $32 billion a year in health care costs.
What are the best salt alternatives? Normalise Blood Pressure Naturally
Use herbs and spices to flavor your food. herbs such as rosemary, parsley, cilantro, and basil; spices like cinnamon, cumin, and nutmeg; Condiments like lemon, lime juice, pepper, vinegar and wasabi paste.
You can also use potassium chloride instead of salt. It is not palatable, but it can be used to replace 25% of the overall salt. But be careful if you have kidney problems or take potassium-retaining medications.
2. Potassium: Mother Nature’s Best High Blood Pressure Remedy
- Although most people only focus on cutting sodium in their diet, there is another nutrient that is almost equally important: potassium. The American Heart Association (AHA) recommends adequate potassium intake as both a preventive measure and a treatment option for patients with high blood pressure.
- Potassium is the enemy of sodium!
- Also, they fight each other. If there is more sodium, the kidneys excrete more potassium. And if potassium is high, the kidneys excrete sodium.
- “Potassium helps the kidneys excrete excess sodium instead of retaining it,” says cardiovascular specialist Raghavendra Makam, MD, MPH. Potassium helps improve your body’s overall vascular health, he adds. Potassium reduces stress on blood vessel walls and may have other benefits on your heart health.”
- Potassium acts as a natural diuretic: it helps remove excess water and sodium from the urine.
How much potassium should be eaten?
- The recommended daily requirement for potassium is 4700 mg. Most of us consume far less; About half. The ideal ratio between potassium/sodium is 3:1 but many people don’t eat that ratio.
- One of the best sources of potassium is bananas, but 1 medium banana contains less than 500 mg so if you rely on bananas alone for potassium, you need 10 bananas which is unrealistic. So, include other good sources like kiwi, spinach, carrots, oranges, white beans, pistachios, baked potatoes, sweet potatoes, figs, broccoli, tomatoes, cucumbers, raisins, carrots, dates, cauliflower, lentils, mushrooms and avocados. .
- Norwegian researchers conducted a kiwi fruit trial in which a group of high blood pressure patients ate 3 kiwis a day for 8 weeks. And the results were nothing less than miraculous: BP reduction by 10/9 mm Hg; 15% decrease in blood clotting and 11% decrease in ACE.
- If your diet is primarily plant-based (vegetables and fruits), you don’t need to worry about potassium. If not, you should increase your intake of fruits and vegetables and reduce your intake of junk food.
- The largest meta-study (more than 250,000 people) on potassium was published in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology. It found that by adding potassium-rich foods and reducing sodium intake, we could prevent around 11,55,000 stroke deaths worldwide each year.
- But if you have a medical condition that interferes with kidney function, you must limit your potassium intake.
3. Magnesium: The yoga master for arteries
- We need magnesium to relax blood vessels, produce energy, and help develop bones. Like potassium, too much magnesium can be lost in the urine due to diuretic use.
- Magnesium is also called potassium’s “twin” because the two are so tightly bound metabolically. If you don’t get enough magnesium, it’s hard to maintain enough potassium in your cells.
- Magnesium relaxes the muscles in your blood vessels. It’s like yoga or massage for your pot. It is anti-inflammatory and is associated with lower levels of inflammatory markers in the blood. As a result, it also helps with endothelial dysfunction, which is one of the causes of high blood pressure.
- Magnesium is also a calcium channel blocker in nature. It works similarly to synthetic calcium blocker drugs. If your body doesn’t get enough magnesium, too much calcium enters the muscle cells and causes stress on the arteries and increases blood pressure.
- Magnesium deficiency can cause fatigue, weakness, osteoporosis, and irregular heartbeat, among others.
How Much Magnesium Should I Eat?
The RDA for magnesium is 420 milligrams (mg) per day for men age 50 and older; 320 mg/day for women 50 years and older.
Good sources of dietary magnesium are dark, leafy green vegetables, spinach, cocoa powder, Brazil nuts, chickpeas, coffee, whole grains, buckwheat and legumes.
Magnesium cuts the risk of death from a heart attack in half!!
59000 Japanese people were monitored for 15 years in a very large-scale observational study. It was found that people with the highest dietary intake of magnesium had a 50% reduced risk of dying from cardiovascular disease.
4. Antioxidants: Scavengers
- Oxidative stress is a major problem in which free radicals (highly destructive molecules) attack the fragile endothelium (the inner cellular lining of blood vessels), impairing the ability of blood vessels to relax and dilate. What is oxidative stress? An easy example to understand is what happens to an apple when you cut it. It turns brown due to oxidative stress.
- But everybody problem has a solution. And the solution to free radicals is antioxidants, also known as free radical scavengers. The main function of antioxidants is to protect the body from free radicals. It not only prevents cancer but also helps in controlling blood pressure. Fruits and vegetables are rich in antioxidants. So, another reason for you is to serve more of them, especially vegetables.
- There is one particular antioxidant that is perhaps more important than any other antioxidant for good heart health: CoQ10.
- “CoQ10 is a powerful chain-breaking antioxidant with a proven ability to prevent the narrowing of arteries by free radicals, thus combating oxidative stress and lowering blood pressure.”
- An Australian meta-analysis of 12 clinical trials found that CoQ10 supplements significantly reduced BP by 17/8 mmHg with no side effects. Not all research is equally optimistic, however.
- Statin drugs inhibit CoQ10 production, so taking this supplement is even more important if you take statins. The recommended dosage for CoQ10 is 100-300 mg/day.
- Some natural sources of CoQ10 include organic meats, soy, fatty fish, vegetables, seeds, and nuts. Normalise Blood Pressure Naturally.
