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- ARTICLESOf all the illnesses that make up cardiovascular diseases (CVD)—suchas heart attack, stroke, angina pectoris, atherosclerosis, and arteriosclerosis—highblood pressure, also known as hypertension, is the most common. It is also a conditionabout which many North Americans are complacent.
This is a riddle. Hypertension may be common, and we may not worry about it, butit can be deadly. Hypertension can result in serious conditions such as kidney disease totraumatic and often tragic events such as stroke, heart attack, and even death.
So why the laid-back attitude? Do we just not care? It may be because of howhypertension "works." It is quiet—there is no evidence of the disease untilit has progressed to the point at which a crisis occurs. Its treatment is not without aphysical cost—much of the medication used for hypertension has uncomfortable andtroubling side effects. Nor is its treatment of short duration—hypertension therapyis generally lifelong.
However, treatment does not have to be uncomfortable—hypertension can belowered through three things that have no negative side effects (and actually havepositive side effects); three things for which you may not have to pay extra because youuse them as a matter of course; and three things that you may actually enjoy. These threethings are diet, supplements, and exercise.
The DASH (Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension) diet is low intotal fat, saturated fat, and cholesterol; rich in fruits, vegetables, and fiber; andcontains small amounts of nonfat dairy products and meat, fish, poultry, or nuts.Hypertensive volunteers who followed this diet for eight weeks saw a significant reductionin blood pressure—the same reduction as experienced with some drug therapies. The HarvardHealth Letter (January 1998) notes that this diet "significantly and quicklylowered blood pressure in hypertensive participants … ."
One nutrient that may contribute much to the DASH diet is potassium. In theclinical trials for the DASH diet, subjects received 4,700 mg (4.7 g) of potassium perday; the control subjects received only 1,700 mg (1.7 g) per day. Indeed, the U.S.National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI) recommends consuming 3,500 mg (3.5 g) ofpotassium a day. The best sources of this are foods such as orange juice, bananas,potatoes, prunes, and yogurt.
Harry Preuss, M.D., has been studying garlic’s effect onhypertension at Georgetown University Medical Center. Although he has been studying anumber of different garlic types, he has been particularly impressed with the Alliumursinum species of garlic, which is also known as alpine wild garlic.
In an interview in conjunction with Dallas Clouatre, Ph.D., Dr. Preuss notesthat wild garlic "worked beautifully as far as blood pressure [is concerned]" inrat models.
Drs. Preuss and Clouatre believe this is due to an ACE-inhibitingproperty. Simply put, ACE is an enzyme that may lead to increased blood pressure. Ratstudies show that wild garlic inhibits this enzyme, resulting in lower blood pressure.When Dr. Preuss measured angiotensin II, which causes blood vessels to contract (resultingin greater pressure), he found that rats fed wild garlic had one-half of this substancecompared to control rats.
Dr. Preuss also found that wild garlic works on the nitric oxide system. An increase ofnitric oxide in blood vessels causes them to vasodialate—to expand. This, of course,also helps to reduce blood pressure. The combination of ACE inhibition and nitric oxidesynthesis may be why alpine wild garlic works so well. As Dr. Preuss notes, "Thereare medical reasons why wild garlic is reported to have this [antihypertensive]effect."
Finally, getting some form of exercise is beneficial—there isample evidence that weight loss and exercise positively affect blood pressure.
Richard D. More, M.D., Ph.D., writing in his book The High BloodPressure Solution, notes that in some studies, weight loss in the obese led to normalblood pressure in three out of four people, and that no drugs were used. Moore also notesthat losing excess weight "has been reported to lower elevated blood pressure evenmore effectively than drug treatment with beta blockers."
Exercise alone, with no weight loss, also affects blood pressure. Moore againreports that in one program 105 hypertensive patients undertook a walking program,starting with walking one mile and working up to running two miles. One-hundred and one ofthe 105 patients had significant drops in blood pressure, and 50 percent of those who hadbeen using antihypertensive therapy were able to discontinue their drug use.
If your "pressure is on," take control of your health by working withyour health practitioner to develop a new lifestyle. A lifestyle that includes diet,judicious supplementation, and exercise.
| What is high blood pressure? Blood pressure is a measure of the force of blood against the walls of the arteries. It is read with two numbers, systolic and diastolic, which are often just referred to as "top and bottom." The top number, systolic, measures blood pressure when the heart is pumping out blood. The bottom number, diastolic, measures blood pressure between heartbeats, that is, when the heart is not pumping, but at rest. The usual cause of high blood pressure is a persistent increase in resistance to blood flow through the smaller branches of the arteries, which carry blood from the heart throughout the body. Why this happens is unknown 95 percent of the time.
*If your systolic and diastolic pressures are in different categories, your risk depends on the higher category. | |||||||||||||||||||||