Hypertension Blood Pressure Quotes

The laboratory evidence that carbohydrate-rich diets can cause the body to reain water and so raise blood pressure, just as salt consumption is supposed to do, dates back well over a century

They said downstairs the Parnate made me black out. It did a blood pressure thing. My mother heard noises upstairs and found me she said down on my side chewing the rug in my room. My room’s shag-carpeted. She said I was on the floor flushed red and all wet like when I was a newborn; she said she thought at first she hallucinated me as a newborn again. On my side all red and wet.' 'A hypertensive crisis will do that. It means your blood pressure was high enough to have killed you. Sertraline in combination with an MAOI2828 will kill you, in enough quantities. And with the toxicity of that much lithium besides, I'd say you're pretty lucky to be here right now.’ 'My mother sometimes thinks she's hallucinating.’ 'Sertraline, by the way, is the Zoloft you kept instead of discarding as instructed when changing medications.’ 'She says I chewed a big hole out of the carpet. But who can say.

When the American Dietetic Association (ADA) surveyed all the studies on food and health, they concluded not just that a vegetarian or vegan diet is as healthy as one that includes meat, but that “vegetarians have been reported to have lower body mass indices than non-vegetarians, as well as lower rates of death from ischemic heart disease, lower blood cholesterol levels, lower blood pressure, and lower rates of hypertension, type 2 diabetes, and prostate and colon cancer.

Doctors call conditions like bad blood pressure or hypertension “invisible killers.” Not thinking will, without careful attention, kill you, or it will kill your brain and you will become—to use the medical term—“stupid.” We say stupid things, we are angered for stupid reasons, we talk stupid, vote stupid, eat stupid, hate stupid, and don’t have the slightest idea how to love ourselves or someone else. We aim our rifle at the wrong guy on the wrong battlefield. We vote to enrich those who are already billionaires, somehow thinking we are not punishing ourselves.

The researchers tried a clever tactic to overcome this problem. They created a number of recipes for common foods including muffins and pasta in which they could disguise placebo ingredients like bran and molasses to match the texture and color of the flax-laden foods. This way, they could randomize people into two groups and secretly introduce tablespoons of daily ground flaxseeds into the diets of half the participants to see if it made any difference. After six months, those who ate the placebo foods started out hypertensive and stayed hypertensive, despite the fact that many of them were on a variety of blood pressure pills. On average, they started the study at 155/81 and ended it at 158/81. What about the hypertensives who were unknowingly eating flaxseeds every day? Their blood pressure dropped from 158/82 down to 143/75. A seven-point drop in diastolic blood pressure may not sound like a lot, but that would be expected to result in 46 percent fewer strokes and 29 percent less heart disease over time.125 How does that result compare with taking drugs? The flaxseeds managed to drop subjects’ systolic and diastolic blood pressure by up to fifteen and seven points, respectively. Compare that result to the effect of powerful antihypertensive drugs, such as calcium-channel blockers (for example, Norvasc, Cardizem, Procardia), which have been found to reduce blood pressure by only eight and three points, respectively, or to ACE inhibitors (such as Vasotec, Lotensin, Zestril, Altace), which drop patients’ blood pressure by only five and two points, respectively.126 Ground flaxseeds may work two to three times better than these medicines, and they have only good side effects. In addition to their anticancer properties, flaxseeds have been demonstrated in clinical studies to help control cholesterol, triglyceride, and blood sugar levels; reduce inflammation, and successfully treat constipation.127 Hibiscus Tea for Hypertension Hibiscus tea, derived from the flower of the same name, is also known as roselle, sorrel, jamaica, or sour tea. With

American Dietetic Association (ADA) surveyed all the studies on food and health, they concluded not just that a vegetarian or vegan diet is as healthy as one that includes meat, but that “vegetarians have been reported to have lower body mass indices than non-vegetarians, as well as lower rates of death from ischemic heart disease, lower blood cholesterol levels, lower blood pressure, and lower rates of hypertension, type 2 diabetes, and prostate and colon cancer.

by the 1960s hypertension and high cholesterol were two of the three major risk factors associated with premature coronary heart disease (the third was smoking), so it was difficult to imagine that eating carbohydrates might be beneficial for one risk factor, cholesterol, while being detrimental for another, blood pressure.

S.P. is a 68-year-old retired painter who is experiencing right leg calf pain. The pain began approximately 2 years ago but has become significantly worse in the past 4 months. The pain is precipitated by exercise and is relieved with rest. Two years ago, S.P. could walk two city blocks before having to stop because of leg pain. Today, he can barely walk across the yard. S.P. has smoked two to three packs of cigarettes per day (PPD) for the past 45 years. He has a history of coronary artery disease (CAD), hypertension (HTN), peripheral vascular disease (PVD), and osteoarthritis. Surgical history includes quadruple coronary artery bypass graft (CABG × 4) 3 years ago. He has had no further symptoms of cardiopulmonary disease since that time, even though he has not been compliant with the exercise regimen his cardiologist prescribed, he continues to eat anything he wants, and continues to smoke two to three PPD. Other surgical history includes open reduction internal fixation of the right femoral fracture 20 years ago. S.P. is in the clinic today for a routine semiannual follow-up appointment with his primary care provider. As you take his vital signs, he tells you that, besides the calf pain, he is experiencing right hip pain that gets worse with exercise, the pain doesn't go away promptly with rest, some days are worse than others, and his condition is not affected by a resting position. � Chart View General Assessment Weight 261 lb Height 5 ft, 10 in. Blood pressure 163/91 mm Hg Pulse 82 beats/min Respiratory rate 16 breaths/min Temperature 98.4° F (36.9° C) Laboratory Testing (Fasting) Cholesterol 239 mg/dL Triglycerides 150 mg/dL HDL 28 mg/dL LDL 181 mg/dL Current Medications Lisinopril (Zestril) 20 mg/day Metoprolol (Lopressor) 25 mg twice a day Aspirin 325 mg/day Simvastatin (Zocor) 20 mg/day Case Study 4 Name Class/Group Date ____________________ Group Members INSTRUCTIONS All questions apply to this case study. Your responses should be brief and to the point. When asked to provide several

hypertension with systolic pressures above 140 or diastolic

Diabetes – the physical costs Hypertension: 70% of diabetics also require medication for blood pressure. Cholesterol: 65% of diabetics require medication to reduce their cholesterol. Heart attacks: Diabetics, even when on full medication, are twice as likely to be hospitalised, crippled or die from a heart attack. Strokes: Diabetics are 1.5 times more likely to suffer a debilitating stroke. Blindness and Eye Problems: Diabetes is the number one cause of preventable blindness in the developed world. Impotence: Diabetes is also the number one cause of impotence. Dementia: Having diabetes doubles your risk of dementia. Kidney disease: Diabetes is the cause of kidney failure in half of all new cases; most people on dialysis are diabetics. Amputations: There are over 7000 diabetes-related amputations done every year in the UK and over 73,000 in the US.

My systolic blood pressure had dropped from 142 ten days ago—a deep state of stage 2 hypertension—to 124, still a bit high but just a few points from a healthy range. My heart rate variability increased by more than 150 percent, and my carbon dioxide levels rose around 30 percent, taking me from a state of hypocapnia, which can cause dizziness, numbness in the fingers, and mental confusion, and placing me squarely within the medically normal

My blood pressure has spiked by an average of 13 points from where it was before the test, which puts me deep into stage 1 hypertension. If left unchecked, this state of chronically raised blood pressure, also shared by a third of the U.S. population, can cause heart attacks, stroke, and other serious problems. Meanwhile, my heart rate variability, a measure of nervous system balance, has plummeted, suggesting that my body is in a state of stress. Then there’s my pulse, which has increased, and my body temperature, which has decreased, and my mental clarity, which has hit rock bottom. Olsson’s data mirror mine.

Indeed, even if the permanent secretary was fat, hypertensive or a smoker, he was still less likely to suffer a heart attack at a given age than a thin, non-smoking, low-blood-pressure janitor.

You’ve probably had your blood pressure taken at the doctor’s office. The nurse reads off two numbers, say, for example, “115 over 75.” The first number (“systolic”) represents the pressure in your arteries as your blood pumps from the heart; the second number (“diastolic”) is the pressure in your arteries while the heart is resting between beats. The American Heart Association defines “normal” blood pressure as a systolic pressure under 120 and a diastolic pressure under 80—or 120/80. Anything above 140/90 is considered hypertensive. Values in between are considered prehypertensive.8

Increased blood pressure puts a strain on the heart and can damage the sensitive blood vessels in your eyes and kidneys, cause bleeding in the brain, and even lead certain arteries to balloon and rupture. The fact that hypertension can damage so many organ systems and increase the risk of heart disease and stroke, two of our leading killers, explains why it is the number-one killer risk factor worldwide.

Non-meat eaters, especially vegans, have a lower prevalence of hypertension and lower systolic and diastolic blood pressures than meat eaters, largely because of differences in body mass index.

a 2014 meta-analysis (a compilation of many similar studies) showing that vegetarian diets may be particularly good at lowering blood pressure.110 And the more plants, perhaps, the better. Meat-free diets in general “confer protection against cardiovascular diseases . . . some cancers and total mortality,” but completely plant-based diets “seem to offer additional protection for obesity, hypertension, type-2 diabetes, and cardiovascular mortality.”111

given sufficient time, high-fructose diets can induce high insulin levels, high blood sugar, and insulin resistance, even though in the short term fructose has little effect on either blood sugar or insulin and so a very low glycemic index. It has also been known since the 1960s that fructose elevates blood pressure more than an equivalent amount of glucose does, a phenomenon called fructose-induced hypertension. Because

Consider heart attacks. Even as recently as the 1950s, we had little idea of how to prevent or treat them. We didn’t know, for example, about the danger of high blood pressure, and had we been aware of it we wouldn’t have known what to do about it. The first safe medication to treat hypertension was not developed and conclusively demonstrated to prevent disease until the 1960s. We didn’t know about the role of cholesterol, either, or genetics or smoking or diabetes. Furthermore,

Added sugar raises your blood pressure. In fact, sugar may be worse for your blood pressure than salt, according to a paper published in the journal Open Heart. Just a few weeks on a high-sucrose diet can increase both systolic and diastolic blood pressure. Another study found that for every sugar-sweetened beverage, risk of developing hypertension increased 8 percent.

Modification of brain waves Improved balance of sex hormones Lower mortality rate from heart attacks Lower blood pressure in patients with hypertension Greater bone density Better circulation Deceleration of symptoms associated with senility Greater balance and efficiency of bodily functions

The following stand out among those proven through scientific research, as observed by Dr. Kenneth M. Sancier of San Francisco’s Qigong Institute in his article “Medical Applications of Qigong”3: Modification of brain waves Improved balance of sex hormones Lower mortality rate from heart attacks Lower blood pressure in patients with hypertension Greater bone density Better circulation Deceleration of symptoms associated with senility Greater balance and efficiency of bodily functions Increased blood flow to the brain and greater mind-body connection Improved cardiac function Reduction in the secondary effects of cancer treatments Practicing these arts not only keeps us in shape, it also helps extend our lives.

Garlic has three very important cardiovascular effects: One, it lowers blood pressure and is a key component in any natural approach to treating hypertension. Two, it lowers cholesterol and fats (triglycerides) in the blood, raising the protective (HDL) fraction of total cholesterol while reducing the susceptibility of the harmful (LDL) fraction to oxidation and thereby diminishing its potential to damage artery walls. Three, garlic inhibits blood clotting by reducing the tendency of platelets to clump together.

As we’ve also seen, many people with normal blood pressure, prehypertension, and hypertension may even get a rise in their blood pressure if they restrict their salt intake.18 This is because when salt intake is severely limited, the body begins to activate rescue systems that avidly try to retain more salt and water from the diet. These rescue operations include the renin-angiotensin aldosterone system (well known for increasing blood pressure) and the sympathetic nervous system (well known for increasing heart rate).19 Clearly, this is the opposite of what you want to happen!

Bjorn Folkow, the pioneering Swedish hypertension researcher, made a compelling case that the overall stress on the heart and arteries was from the combined effects of heart rate and blood pressure, suggesting that salt restriction increased the combined effects of heart rate and blood pressure.41 In other words, low-salt diets would increase the overall stress on the heart and arteries and hence increase the risk of hypertension and heart failure.

When Richard Cooper went to medical school at the University of Arkansas in the late 1960s, he was stunned at how many of his black patients were suffering from high blood pressure. He would encounter people in their forties and fifties felled by strokes that left them institutionalized. When Cooper did some research on the problem, he learned that American doctors had first noted the high rate of hypertension in American blacks decades earlier. Cardiologists concluded it must be the result of genetic differences between blacks and whites. Paul Dudley White, the preeminent American cardiologist of the early 1900s, called it a “racial predisposition,” speculating that the relatives of American blacks in West Africa must suffer from high blood pressure as well. Cooper went on to become a cardiologist himself, conducting a series of epidemiological studies on heart disease. In the 1990s, he finally got the opportunity to put the racial predisposition hypothesis to the test. Collaborating with an international network of doctors, Cooper measured the blood pressure of eleven thousand people. Paul Dudley White, it turned out, was wrong. Farmers in rural Nigeria and Cameroon actually had substantially lower blood pressure than American blacks, Cooper found. In fact, they had lower blood pressure than white Americans, too. Most surprisingly of all, Cooper found that people in Finland, Germany, and Spain had higher blood pressure than American blacks. Cooper’s findings don’t challenge the fact that genetic variants can increase people’s risk of developing high blood pressure. In fact, Cooper himself has helped run studies that have revealed some variants in African Americans and Nigerians that can raise that risk. But this genetic inheritance does not, on its own, explain the experiences of African and European Americans. To understand their differences, doctors need to examine the experiences of blacks and whites in the United States—the stress of life in high-crime neighborhoods and the difficulty of getting good health care, for example. These are powerful inheritances, too, but they’re not inscribed in DNA. For scientists carrying out the hard work of disentangling these influences, an outmoded biological concept of race offers no help. In the words of the geneticists Noah Rosenberg and Michael Edge, it has become “a sideshow and a distraction.

Inhabitants of Kotyang, Nepal Sodium intake: ~ 4,600 mg sodium/day Blood pressure: No cases of hypertension in the men. Blood pressure did not increase with age. In the women, hypertension was extremely rare (1.4 percent). The authors concluded, “In the present study, no significant increase in systolic blood pressure with age was found in men living in Kotyang, and no hypertensive men and very few hypertensive women were detected in Kotyang

High blood pressure is bad. It increases the risk of death. Atenolol lowers blood pressure, but it does not lower the risk of death. The evidence supporting the claim that hypertension increases your risk of death is very different from the evidence proving that using atenolol to decrease your blood pressure lowers your risk of death.

Junk food clogs your arteries, sends your blood pressure up and makes you fat; junk news causes political hypertension, cognitive cholesterol, flabby thinking.

*​Adapted from:

This table represents the degree of hypertension associated with different blood pressure levels. Note that, except for Stage 2, experts suggest that hypertension should be diagnosed only after at least two elevated blood pressure readings taken during different office visits. If your systolic and diastolic readings fall into different categories, the higher category defines your blood pressure classification. These classifications do not apply if you are taking antihypertensive drugs or are acutely ill.

Magnesium is the natural element your body uses to prevent excess calcium from entering these cells and to maintain normal blood pressure. Magnesium is indeed our natural calcium blocker. Dr. Sherry Rogers, a leading proponent of integrative medicine, has written extensively about magnesium’s benefits for disorders caused by abnormal muscle constriction. “In order for a muscle to contract, it needs calcium. In order to relax it needs magnesium.”11 Hypertension is one of the conditions for which Dr. Rogers uses magnesium. Magnesium is also necessary for the health of the endothelium, the tiny cells that form the thin inner lining of the blood vessels. Endothelial cells play an active role in prompting the smooth muscle cells to constrict or relax by producing substances such as prostacycline, thromboxane, and endothelin. Magnesium increases the endothelium’s production of prostacycline, which induces artery relaxation, and it inhibits the production of thromboxane and endothelin, which promotes artery constriction.12 Magnesium also directly influences the ability of cells to use potassium, which also induces artery relaxation. Dr. Mildred Seelig, one of the first pioneers of magnesium research, states, “Low potassium, by itself, can bring on high blood pressure. But even adequate potassium intake cannot normalize high blood pressure if magnesium is too low. Without enough magnesium (and potassium) in our bodies, we cannot expect normal blood pressure.”13 THE PROBLEM WITH THE STANDARD MEDICAL TREATMENT OF HYPERTENSION With the exception of the common cold, hypertension accounts for more visits to doctors in the United States than any other condition. Most often, the treatment recommended is some type of prescription drug. Sometimes these drugs are necessary, and there is no doubt their ability to lower blood pressure can prevent many of the severe complications of hypertension.

We do know that blood pressure is controlled by the tiny smooth muscles lining the interior of blood vessels and the nerves that control them. These muscles’ ability to dilate or constrict governs the pressure and blood flow to each organ and tissue, thus allowing the body to adapt to various states such as sleep, digestion, or exercise, as well as to external circumstances such as a hot or cold environment. When the muscles throughout the vascular system dilate, blood pressure drops. When the muscles constrict, blood pressure rises. If this constriction occurs continuously, the blood pressure remains abnormally high. This is hypertension. What influences the relaxing and tightening of the tiny smooth muscles lining the blood vessels? Many factors, but among the foremost is the mineral magnesium. Actually, the balance of magnesium and another mineral, calcium, in and around the muscle cells lining the arteries is a primary determinant of their state of relaxation and constriction. Calcium tends to make muscles constrict, whereas magnesium causes them to relax.

Arrhythmias are additional common causes of problems and death, and the heart can also be damaged by infections, birth defects, drugs, and faulty wiring. But atherosclerosis is by far the leading culprit, and chronically high blood pressure, hypertension, is a close second. Hypertension is a silent condition that relentlessly strains the heart, arteries, and various organs. At least 100,000 times a day, the heart forces about five liters of blood through thousands of miles of arteries that resist each squeeze, generating pressure. When we exercise, blood pressure rises temporarily, causing the heart’s muscular chambers to adapt, mostly by becoming stronger, larger, and more elastic so it can pump more blood with each stroke.30 Just as important, arteries also adapt to exercise to keep blood pressure low, primarily by expanding, multiplying, and staying elastic.31 However, when blood pressure is chronically high, the heart defends itself by developing thicker muscular walls. These thicker walls stiffen and fill with scar tissue, and eventually the heart weakens. A vicious cycle then ensues. As the heart’s ability to pump blood declines, it becomes harder to exercise and thus control high blood pressure. Blood pressure may rise as the heart progressively weakens until the failing heart cannot support or sustain a normal blood pressure. Death usually ensues. Coronary artery disease is ancient and has even been diagnosed in mummies.32 But research on nonindustrial populations provides powerful evidence that coronary artery disease and hypertension are largely evolutionary mismatches. Although many medical textbooks teach doctors that it’s normal for blood pressure to rise with age, we have known since the 1970s this is not true among hunter-gatherer populations like the San and the Hadza.33 The average blood pressure in a seventy-year-old San hunter-gatherer is 120/67, no different from a twenty-year-old. Lifelong low blood pressure also characterizes many subsistence farming populations. My colleagues Rob Shave and Aaron Baggish and I measured more than a hundred Tarahumara farmers of every age and found no difference in blood pressure between teenagers and octogenarians.34 By the same token, blood pressure can also stay normal into old age among industrialized people who eat sensibly and stay active.35

Essential hypertension, i.e. high blood pressure without known cause, is hyperinsulin, type 2 diabetes until proven otherwise by oral glucose tolerance with insulin assays.

Hypertension is only a symptom of some other malfunction in your body. It’s possible that the elevated blood pressure is a protective effect, enabling the heart to get blood to all the tissues in spite of the disease, whatever that might be. But since we still haven’t figured out what that reason is, most physicians just throw drugs at the symptom and consider the problem solved when the high blood pressure goes down.

To maintain the same volume of blood flow through our narrowed and stiffened blood vessels, the heart has to generate increased pressure. As a result, more than half of us develop hypertension by the age of sixty-five.

The separation of mind and body that informs medical practice is also the dominant ideology in our culture. We do not often think of socio-economic structures and practices as determinants of illness or well-being. They are not usually “part of the equation.” Yet the scientific data is beyond dispute: socio-economic relationships have a profound influence on health. For example, although the media and the medical profession — inspired by pharmaceutical research — tirelessly promote the idea that next to hypertension and smoking, high cholesterol poses the greatest risk for heart disease, the evidence is that job strain is more important than all the other risk factors combined. Further, stress in general and job strain in particular are significant contributors both to high blood pressure and to elevated cholesterol levels. Economic relationships influence health because, most obviously, people with higher incomes are better able to afford healthier diets, living and working conditions and stress-reducing pursuits. Dennis Raphael, associate professor at the School of Health Policy and Management at York University in Toronto has recently published a study of the societal influences on heart disease in Canada and elsewhere. His conclusion: “One of the most important life conditions that determine whether individuals stay healthy or become ill is their income. In addition, the overall health of North American society may be more determined by the distribution of income among its members rather than the overall wealth of the society…. Many studies find that socioeconomic circumstances, rather than medical and lifestyle risk factors, are the main causes of cardiovascular disease, and that conditions during early life are especially important.” The element of control is the less obvious but equally important aspect of social and job status as a health factor. Since stress escalates as the sense of control diminishes, people who exercise greater control over their work and lives enjoy better health. This principle was demonstrated in the British Whitehall study showing that second-tier civil servants were at greater risk for heart disease than their superiors, despite nearly comparable incomes. Recognizing the multigenerational template for behaviour and for illness, and recognizing, too, the social influences that shape families and human lives, we dispense with the unhelpful and unscientific attitude of blame. Discarding blame leaves us free to move toward the necessary adoption of responsibility, a matter to be taken up when we come in the final chapters to consider healing.

The medical research community came to recognize that insulin resistance and a condition now known as “metabolic syndrome” is a major, if not the major, risk factor for heart disease and diabetes. Before we get either heart disease or diabetes, we first manifest metabolic syndrome. The CDC now estimates that some seventy-five million adult Americans have metabolic syndrome. The very first symptom or diagnostic criterion that doctors are told to look for in diagnosing metabolic syndrome is an expanding waistline. This means that if you’re overweight or obese—as two-thirds of American adults are—there’s a good chance that you have metabolic syndrome; it also means that your blood pressure is likely to be elevated, and you’re glucose-intolerant and thus on the way to becoming diabetic. This is why you’re more likely to have a heart attack than a lean individual—although lean individuals can also have metabolic syndrome, and those who do are more likely to have heart disease and diabetes than lean individuals without it. Metabolic syndrome ties together a host of disorders that the medical community typically thought of as unrelated, or at least having separate and distinct causes—getting fatter (obesity), high blood pressure (hypertension), high triglycerides, low HDL cholesterol (dyslipidemia), heart disease (atherosclerosis), high blood sugar (diabetes), and inflammation (pick your disease)—as products of insulin resistance and high circulating insulin levels (hyperinsulinemia). It’s a kind of homeostatic disruption in which regulatory systems throughout the body are misbehaving with slow, chronic, pathological consequences everywhere.

this salt/hypertension hypothesis has resolutely resisted confirmation in clinical trials. For those not hopelessly wedded to the hypothesis, it has become increasingly difficult to believe that consuming too much salt is why we become hypertensive and why our blood pressure rises inexorably with age. Systematic reviews of the evidence from these trials invariably conclude that reducing our average salt intake by half, for instance, which is difficult to accomplish in the real world, will decrease blood pressure by 4 to 5 mm Hg mercury, on average, in those with hypertension, and perhaps 2 mm Hg in those without (known as normotensives). But even stage 1 hypertension, the less severe form of the condition, is defined by having a blood pressure elevated by at least 20 mm Hg over what’s considered healthy. Stage 2 is defined as blood pressure elevated by at least 40 mm Hg over healthy levels. Hence, the fact that halving our salt consumption will result in a decrease of only 4 to 5 mm Hg suggests that the salt we eat is not the primary dietary driver of this disorder.

In the 1980s, Lewis Landsberg, a Harvard endocrinologist who would later become dean of the Northwestern University School of Medicine, discovered yet another mechanism by which insulin works to increase blood pressure and perhaps induce hypertension—in this case, by stimulating the central nervous system. Landsberg’s revelation has since been integrated into established thinking as an explanation for why the obese are hypertensive: they’re insulin-resistant, with chronically elevated levels of insulin, which in turn stimulates the nervous system, increasing heart rate, constricting blood vessels, and chronically elevating blood pressure. Since the obese seem to have increased sympathetic nervous activity, it makes perfect sense.