Over twenty-five percent
of Americans have hypertension (high blood pressure). Over 50% of Americans
over 65 have high blood pressure. In countries where they do not consume lots
of salt and protein, hypertension is rare. See more on this on home page,
Healthy Diet. Many people do not know that they have it. Many are not on
medications (drugs) for it since they do not like the side effects. Many
are taking 3 or 4 drugs for it.
Some people are able to cure it with a supplement like taking garlic or mangosteen juice. Others are able to bring it under control with a change in diet and exercise. If you have a back or neck problem, that can cause it, so see the page on that. Make sure to see the chapter below comparing natural remedies for high blood pressure with medications used to treat high blood pressure.
Here is something that works on almost everyone plus natural remedies for high blood pressure. This method involves changing the diet but the powerful method that reverses the damage is fasting. Read the webpage about fasting on this website with quotes from 19 MDs. So first a person fasts for 2 or 3 weeks, then changes their diet to one with no animal products and no or little salt.
These natural remedies for high blood pressure comes from an MD (Joel Fuhrman) who has spent 30 years treating people with fasting and a change of diet. It is a diet of little or no salt, no animal products, fruits, vegetables (plenty of greens), nuts, seeds, beans and whole grains. This is explained in detail by the book below and someone can have their fast supervised by Dr Fuhrman or another fasting professional. He can also take you off drugs during the fast like he did with one guy who was on 2 medications for hypertension and yet his blood pressure was still too high. After the fast it was normal without drugs.
Natural remedies for high blood pressure comes from a book by Dr Fuhrman mentioned at the bottom. There are testimonials in it by other MDs. It says "Those suffering from the ravages of heart disease must be told that there is a safe, less invasive way to get relief and prolong their lives. A plant-based diet in conjunction with a properly conducted fast most often leads to a total recovery or a vast improvement in hypertension and angina."
This book is loaded with lots of recent studies. During the fast, a person's blood pressure goes down. People with angina (chest pain caused by atherosclerosis [hardening] of coronary arteries) can get a complete recovery from fasting and a change of diet. See chapter below about pomegranate juice.
The blood pressure medicines are the biggest sellers. Many do not take them due to the varied bad side effects. People who take the medications for hypertension do not get less heart attacks than those who do not take them for their high blood pressure.
Dr Fuhrman graduated U of Penn medical school (one of 8 Ivy League colleges). His mother was fasted by Dr Shelton who had fasted 40,000 people. Dr Fuhrman was an Olympic skater who injured his foot and fasted for 40 days to heal it. His book tells about diet to get rid of headaches and migraines that is much more strict than the above diet. His book also covers using fasting and/or change of diet to cure diabetes (type 2), rheumatoid arthritis, acne, lupus, psoriasis, osteoporosis, tinnitus, vertigo and glaucoma.
The total cholesterol (TC) levels is totally outdated since the more good cholesterol (HDL) you have the better. Then they came out with another formula where your TC over HDL should be less than 4.5 which is somewhat better. But Dr Barry Sears, author of The Zone books, used the latest research that found out that there is harmful and harmless bad cholesterol (LDL). So he took the harmless LDL out of the equation. His formula is triglycerides over HDL. If it is around 1, it is very good. If it is over 4, then that is not good.
He says that this formula is much better at predicting your chance of heart attacks and strokes. I just read where one guy's number was 25. Then he tried a diet and it went up to 42. But then he tried The Zone diet and in 8 weeks it went down to 2.2. Dr Sears' diet emphasizes getting enough omega-3 essential fatty acids which Americans do not get enough of. This alone can make a big difference. It is in highly polluted fish but the best vegetarian source is flaxseeds.
See the page SUPERIOR NUTRITION FOR OPTIMUM HEALTH for more on omega-3s and greens drinks which help hypertension or high blood pressure. It tells how some of them contain lecithin. This has been promoted for cardiovascular health for decades. It comes from soybeans but is also in cabbage, cauliflower, green beans, chickpeas, lentils, corn, split peas and grains. It is dirt cheap, like a pound of it for $12. I just came across this. A guy had high blood pressure.
The doctor said that he needed surgery to have the plaque stripped from the arteries in his neck. It would cost $10,000 but the machine was down and he had to wait. At a health food store they told him to try lecithin. He took 2 tablespoons a day. When he returned to the doctor, the nurse re-examined him and said that he did not need the surgery since the plaque in his arteries was gone.
The webpage, Natural Healing, tells about a group that uses flaxseeds for their omega-3s. This flaxseed oil is a more concentrated source but I use the ground flaxseeds since it provides an extremely good fiber for the colon and also contains lignans which are also beneficial. Dr Barry Sears suggests using pharmaceutical grade fish oil since this has the pollutants removed. But then you are dealing with having to kill many animals to keep you healthy.
Here is information from the home page on healthy diet. I put it there since high blood pressure is such a big problem. Forty percent of Americans over age 40 have hypertension. They desperately need natural remedies for High blood pressure. Americans eat much more protein than they need which is why most of them get myocardial infarctions or cerebrovascular accidents (AKA heart attacks or strokes) according to Joel Fuhrman, M.D. In other places in the world these are not common problems.
Americans consume 5 times the protein they need causing 50% of them, over 65, to have hypertension (according to Joel Fuhrman, M.D.). Yet in some places in the world, hypertension is rare. The American Heart Association says not to eat more than 6 ounces a day of meat, fish or poultry. The saturated fat in meat is also bad for you (increases cholesterol levels). So in studies, they had people switch from beef to a leaner meat like chicken. But they got more protein bite-for-bite and so had no improvement in cardiovascular health. Over 4,000 studies show that fruits and vegetables prevent cancer.
Also on my home page: LATEST NEWS: In an effort to reduce hypertension (high blood pressure) and cardiovascular disease, the American Medical Association is urging "the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to revoke the 'generally recognized as safe' (GRAS) status of salt and to develop regulatory measures to limit sodium in processed and restaurant foods." I was just reading about a study showing that getting a lot of sunshine lowers blood pressure. They think it has to do with the kind of vitamin D created by sunlight on the skin.
People are supposed to have a very high ratio of potassium to sodium in their diet. Salt has huge amounts of sodium and throws that off (see losing water weight on home page). Jane Brody's Nutrition Book says "Hypertension is practically nonexistent in cultures that exist in New Guinea, the Amazon Basin, the Kalahari Desert, and elsewhere, where little or no salt is added to foods." The FDA has on their webpage, Healthier Eating (May-June 2005 Issue [most recent]) a chapter called "Lower Sodium and Increase Potassium" (www.fda.gov/fdac/features/2005/305_eat.html).
An avocado has 1,200 mg of potassium and 25 mg of sodium. A can of chicken noodle soup has over 2,000 mg of sodium. Since a banana has about 400 mg of potassium it is good to eat at least one a day on an empty stomach (see home page to learn why). Also eat avocados which have lots of potassium (1,200 mg) and have a very healthy fat. Michael Roizon, author of You: The Owners Manual, says that it has the healthiest fat for middle aged men and prevents prostate cancer. Foods high in potassium include potatoes (800 mg for medium size potato), avocados, raisins and figs. A cup of coconut milk has over 600 mg of potassium. As far as whole grains, 3 ounces of quinoa has over 600 mg of potassium. It takes 15 minutes to cook these small grains.
See home page for information on how Celtic sea salt (not other sea salt) is better for you. It is even better to put granulated kelp on your food instead of salt. First ,this seaweed or sea vegetable is very salty since it comes from the ocean. But the salt or sodium in it is organic unlike the inorganic sodium in salt. This is like getting organic iron from spinach instead of getting inorganic iron from a nail. Kelp is much higher in trace minerals, including organic iodine, than land plants plus the fiber in it is sold as a supplement since it helps remove toxic metals from the body. They add inorganic iodine to salt since people do not get enough trace minerals like iodine. Kelp is a food whereas salt is not a food.
A nurse says that grapefruits lower blood pressure. So it is one of the natural remedies for high blood pressure. A scientist that studies the phytochemicals in berries says that strawberries reduce blood pressure and blueberries minimize brain damage after a stroke. A stupid thing in our society is that when a doctor prescribes a medicine like Vioxx, people have no questions, even though Vioxx killed more Americans than the terrorists on 9/11. Mention what bananas and strawberries can do and now he has to ask his doctor if he can eat these fruits, even though they were OK to eat before he heard about these benefits.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture (U.S.D.A.) has a website by the leading botanist in the world, Dr James Duke, which lists plants that have antihypertensive phytochemicals in them. The first 2 have the highest concentration of these chemicals and the others have the most different ones: alfalfa plant with 5 antihypertensive chemicals in it, guava fruit 8, garlic 11, tomato 11, banana 11, onion 10, eggplant 10, beets 9, cabbage 9, endive 9, orange 9, grapefruit 9 and sweet potato with 9.
Celery was not on the list but many consider it one of the healthiest foods and it is a natural remedy for high blood pressure. Research has shown that the phytochemical, 3-n-butyl phthalide, that is in celery, can lower blood pressure in lab mice by 12% to 14%. They found that people eating 4 stalks a day can lower blood pressure by 14%. Try to get the organically grown since celery is one of the produce with the highest amounts of pesticides. Now is it better to eat the conventional than none at all? Well if you think that your level of toxins is not too high than maybe it is better to eat the conventional than none at all.
Say that the blood pressure reading changes and both numbers go down. It is easy to see that that is better. But what if it was 150 over 90 and it changes to 155 over 85. Has it improved or got worse. The doctors use 1 number to make it simple. The arteries are at the lower number (diastolic) for twice as long as they are at the higher number (systolic). So they multiply the lower number by 2 and add the higher number and divide by 3. So with the first one, it is 110. With the 2nd reading, it is 108 so the 2nd reading is better. So a reading of 160 over 80 is slightly better than the last one since it is 107.
According to a recent French study, the higher number (the systolic pressure) is more important at predicting cardiovascular problems. The lower number did not affect it. See this page for more on it. It says "The top number in a blood pressure reading is the more important of the two in determining a person's risk of heart attack and stroke, and doctors should attach more importance to a high reading, according to a new French study."
It says that both numbers rise as you get older but at age 55, the lower number (diastolic pressure) goes down. The above is especially important among middle age and older people.
This shows the average number of points that the systolic blood pressure drops from these natural remedies for high blood pressure. Weight loss resulted in an average drop of 1.6 points. A vegetarian high-fiber diet resulted in an average drop of 2.8 points. Alcohol reduction showed a drop of 4.8 points. Exercise produced a drop of 7 -- 8 points. Drugs showed an average drop of 12 points. Sodium Restriction resulted in an average drop of 16 points in systolic blood pressure. A combination of vegan, low-fat, low salt diet and exercise showed a drop of 17 points. Note that studies show that adding olive oil to your food (use cold pressed extra virgin olive oil) reduces blood pressure and helps people to lose weight.
Water-only fasting with supervised re-feeding produced an average drop of 37 points. There was a 12 year study done with 174 patients with mild to severe high blood pressure at True-North Health with the above. It had an average of water-only fasting for 10.6 days followed by supervised re-feeding for one week. For people with severe high blood pressure there was an average drop of 60 points from an average of 194 to an average of 134 after fasting. Below 140 is normal blood pressure.
For people with moderate high blood pressure, there was an average drop of 40 points from 166 to 126. For people with mild high blood pressure, there was a drop of 30 points from 146 to 116 after fasting. This article says to not try unsupervised fasting.
"Dr. Michael Aviram, with the Lipid Research Laboratory at Rambam, thinks it's possible that many high-risk cardiovascular patients can be spared both bypass and carotid surgery by simply drinking pomegranate juice" according to this webpage. They did a study with 19 patients and 10 got pomegranate juice daily and 9 got a placebo (fake juice).
"While the blood pressures of those on the placebo didn't change, the systolic pressure (top number) of those on pomegranate juice went from an average of 174 to 162 mm Hg in just a month. And it reduced even further, to an average of 152 mm Hg at twelve months." This also helped with clearing blockages.
I
do not like the taste of pomegranate juice but some love the taste. But I will
drink juices that contain it. Other juices high in anti-oxidants that may help
this (but have not been studied yet) include acai juice, mangosteen juice, goji
juice and yumberry juice. I have heard of stories of blood pressure dropping a
great deal with mangosteen juice but could be the placebo effect.
Copyright 2006 by Chuck Bluestein
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