{"id":6552,"date":"2023-08-15T19:06:35","date_gmt":"2023-08-15T12:06:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/loudhdtv.com\/?p=6552"},"modified":"2023-08-15T19:06:35","modified_gmt":"2023-08-15T12:06:35","slug":"the-411-on-blood-pressure","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/loudhdtv.com\/?p=6552","title":{"rendered":"The 411 on Blood Pressure"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> <script async src=\"https:\/\/pagead2.googlesyndication.com\/pagead\/js\/adsbygoogle.js?client=ca-pub-3711241968723425\"\r\n     crossorigin=\"anonymous\"><\/script><br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The number one killer on Earth is a<\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov\/30954305\/\"> bad diet<\/a>, and high blood pressure is<a href=\"https:\/\/www.healthdata.org\/infographic\/healthy-eating-saves-lives\"> killer number two<\/a>. The reason it\u2019s so deadly is that it<a href=\"https:\/\/pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov\/28337713\/\"> increases<\/a> your risk of dying from so many different diseases<span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u2014<\/span>from heart disease and stroke to kidney and heart failure.<\/p>\n<p>There\u2019s an<a href=\"https:\/\/pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov\/12493255\/\"> exponential increase<\/a> in our risk of dying from a stroke or heart disease as our pressures go up, starting from around 110 over 70. We used to consider a blood pressure as high as 175<a href=\"https:\/\/pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov\/15428295\/\"> to be normal<\/a>, but that\u2019s \u201cnormal\u201d if you wanted to die from the normal diseases, like heart attack and stroke.<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<h2><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">What Is the Normal Blood Pressure Range?<\/span><\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">A \u201cnormal\u201d blood pressure of 175 over 110 could put you at more than a 1,000 percent higher risk of dying from a stroke compared to the ideal pressure\u2014not the normal pressure, but the <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">ideal<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, which is down around 110 over 70.<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">As I discuss in my video<\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/nutritionfacts.org\/video\/what-the-new-blood-pressure-range-guidelines-mean\/\"> <b>What the New Blood Pressure Range Guidelines Mean<\/b><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">,<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> t<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">he definition of <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">high<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> blood pressure, hypertension, dropped from as high as 190 over 110<\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov\/21859967\/\"> down to 160 over 95<\/a>, with treatment thresholds for high-risk groups starting at 150 over 90 down to 140 over 90, then, most recently, down to 130 over 80. Now, with this new definition, instead of one in three Americans having hypertension, it\u2019s closer to <a href=\"https:\/\/pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov\/29133354\/\">one in two people or two-thirds<\/a> among those over the age of 45.<\/p>\n<p>The bottom line is that Americans are diseased. The number one killer of American men and women is heart disease, a disease that can be<a href=\"https:\/\/pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov\/28630609\/\"> prevented<\/a>, arrested, and reversed with a<a href=\"https:\/\/pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov\/25198208\/\"> healthy enough diet<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>A blood pressure of 120 over 80 may be normal, but 110 would be a better top number and 70 a better lower number, as even down in that range between 70 to 75 or 75 to 80, each 5-point increment is associated with a<a href=\"https:\/\/pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov\/1969518\/\"> third more stroke<\/a> and at least a fifth more heart disease. So, why are the new guidelines up at 130 over 80?<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<h2><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Popping Pills to Push Down Pressures<\/span><\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">With an average of<\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov\/26551272\/\"> three different blood-pressure drugs<\/a>, you can force blood pressures down from 140 to 120, compared to taking only two blood-pressure drugs, and high-risk people live longer because of it. Researchers found significantly less death in the intensive treatment group, but, because of the higher doses and drugs, more side effects, so you have to weigh the risks versus the benefits.<\/p>\n<p>One to 2 percent of people on blood-pressure drugs for five years<a href=\"https:\/\/pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov\/28114673\/\"> will benefit<\/a>\u2014not having a cardiovascular event when they otherwise might have, for instance\u2014but that has to be balanced against the higher risk of adverse side effects. The drugs may decrease the risk of cardiovascular events by<a href=\"https:\/\/pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov\/27339499\/\"> 25 percent<\/a>\u00a0but increase the risk of a serious side effect by 88 percent, but events can<a href=\"https:\/\/pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov\/28114673\/\"> include death<\/a>, whereas most side effects are more on the order of fainting.<\/p>\n<p>If we use drugs to push high-risk people down to a top number of 120, more than 100,000 deaths and 46,000 cases of heart failure may be<a href=\"https:\/\/pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov\/29511979\/\"> prevented every year<\/a>, but \u201c43,000 cases of electrolyte abnormalities and 88,000 cases of acute kidney injury\u201d could be caused. Not great, but better than dying.<\/p>\n<p>Lowering blood pressure is<a href=\"https:\/\/pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov\/30920495\/\"> good for your heart<\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, kidneys, and brain, but at a certain point, the side effects from the drugs could outweigh the benefits. Ideally, we want to get patients\u2019 blood pressures as low as possible, but we only want to use drugs to do it \u201cwhen the effects of treatment are likely to be less destructive than the elevated [blood pressure] BP.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<h2><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">How to Lower Blood Pressure Naturally<\/span><\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">If only there were a way to lower blood pressures <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">without<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> drugs to get the best of both worlds. Thankfully, there is: regular aerobic exercise, weight loss, smoking cessation, increased dietary fiber intake, decreased alcoholic beverage intake, consumption of a more plant-based diet, and cutting down on salt. The advantage is, first of all, no bad side effects. Some lifestyle interventions can actually work <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">better<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> than drugs, because you\u2019re treating the cause, and they actually have <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">good<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> side effects instead. So, we aren\u2019t talking about just 1 or 2 percent of people benefitting over five years. <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Everybody<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> benefits.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<h2><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">What Foods Lower Blood Pressure?<\/span><\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Eating a plant-based diet filled with fiber and potassium-rich foods and less saturated fat may drop pressures. As I discuss in my video<\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/nutritionfacts.org\/video\/how-to-lower-blood-pressure-naturally-with-lifestyle-changes\/\"> <b>How to Lower Blood Pressure Naturally with Lifestyle Changes<\/b><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, e<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">ven just adding fruits and vegetables to the diets of hypertensives can lower their systolic blood pressure\u2014the top number\u2014<\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov\/9099655\/\">by seven points<\/a>. That\u2019s the kind of blood pressure improvement you might get from<a href=\"https:\/\/pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov\/2651610\/\"> losing ten pounds<\/a>, but it was achieved just by eating more fruits and vegetables. And, if that\u2019s combined with a drop in meat consumption, slashing intake of saturated fat and cholesterol, pressures can be cut<a href=\"https:\/\/pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov\/9099655\/\"> by 11 points<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignnone wp-image-95416 size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/nutritionfacts.org\/app\/uploads\/2023\/08\/screen-shot-2023-07-14-at-15544-pm.png\" alt=\"chart showing drop in blood pressure with plant-based and combined diet\" width=\"1852\" height=\"526\" srcset=\"https:\/\/nutritionfacts.org\/app\/uploads\/2023\/08\/screen-shot-2023-07-14-at-15544-pm.png 1852w, https:\/\/nutritionfacts.org\/app\/uploads\/2023\/08\/screen-shot-2023-07-14-at-15544-pm-960x273.png 960w, https:\/\/nutritionfacts.org\/app\/uploads\/2023\/08\/screen-shot-2023-07-14-at-15544-pm-1024x291.png 1024w, https:\/\/nutritionfacts.org\/app\/uploads\/2023\/08\/screen-shot-2023-07-14-at-15544-pm-768x218.png 768w, https:\/\/nutritionfacts.org\/app\/uploads\/2023\/08\/screen-shot-2023-07-14-at-15544-pm-1536x436.png 1536w, https:\/\/nutritionfacts.org\/app\/uploads\/2023\/08\/screen-shot-2023-07-14-at-15544-pm-1200x341.png 1200w, https:\/\/nutritionfacts.org\/app\/uploads\/2023\/08\/screen-shot-2023-07-14-at-15544-pm-720x204.png 720w, https:\/\/nutritionfacts.org\/app\/uploads\/2023\/08\/screen-shot-2023-07-14-at-15544-pm-540x153.png 540w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1852px) 100vw, 1852px\"\/><\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<h2><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">What Is the Quickest Natural Way to Lower Blood Pressure?<\/span><\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It\u2019s simple: <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Eat<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> more plants and less meat, restrict alcohol consumption, lose excess weight, exercise regularly, and cut salt intake.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">When individuals were put on a purely plant-based diet, even one moderate in sodium, hypertensives<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> saw <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">their systolic pressure drop by<\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov\/25311617\/\"> 18 points<\/a>, even after nine out of ten of them reduced their blood pressure medications or stopped them entirely\u2014all within just seven days. That\u2019s pretty impressive! What if you took that same diet but added fasting? A drop by 37 points!<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<h2>Does Fasting Lower Blood Pressure?<\/h2>\n<p>In my video<strong><a href=\"https:\/\/nutritionfacts.org\/video\/fasting-to-naturally-reverse-high-blood-pressure\/\"> Fasting to Naturally Reverse High Blood Pressure<\/a><\/strong>, I discuss what happens with <a href=\"https:\/\/pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov\/11416824\/\">medically supervised<\/a> wa<span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">ter-only fasting in the treatment of high blood pressure. All of the study participants came in hypertensive with blood pressures over 140 over 90, but nine out of ten of them\u201489 percent\u2014walked out with pressures <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">under<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> 140 over 90. The average reduction in systolic blood pressure was 37 points, which is remarkable compared to other interventions, including drugs. And that was just the average drop. Those who came in with really high pressures (over 180, for instance) experienced a <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">60<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">-point drop, and that was <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">after<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> they had all stopped all their blood pressure medications.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The researchers concluded that \u201cmedically supervised water-only fasting appears to be a safe and effective means of normalizing blood pressure.\u201d (No one should be fasting unsupervised for more than a day or two.)<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<h2><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Dropping Down and Staying Down<\/span><\/h2>\n<p>The secret to long-term benefits may be in helping to kickstart a healthier diet by<a href=\"https:\/\/linkinghub.elsevier.com\/retrieve\/pii\/S0306987702002281\"> cleansing our palate<\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, which has been so deadened by hypersweet, hypersalty, hyperfatty foods. After not eating for a week, your regular, normal, healthy real food tastes good again. The ripest peach in the world might taste sour after a bowl of Froot Loops, but fasting may re-sensitize our taste buds, such that you can enjoy something like corn on the cob <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">without<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> added butter and salt. So, you get the best of both worlds: tastes great <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">and<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> less killing.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span class=\"et_social_bottom_trigger\"\/>  <\/div>\n<p><script>\n            !function(f,b,e,v,n,t,s)\n            {if(f.fbq)return;n=f.fbq=function(){n.callMethod?\n                n.callMethod.apply(n,arguments):n.queue.push(arguments)};\n            if(!f._fbq)f._fbq=n;n.push=n;n.loaded=!0;n.version='2.0';\n            n.queue=[];t=b.createElement(e);t.async=!0;\n            t.src=v;s=b.getElementsByTagName(e)[0];\n            s.parentNode.insertBefore(t,s)}(window, document,'script',\n                'https:\/\/connect.facebook.net\/en_US\/fbevents.js');\n            fbq('init', '1582627921973608');\n            fbq('track', 'PageView');\n        <\/script><br \/>\n<br \/><div data-type=\"_mgwidget\" data-widget-id=\"1675549\">\r\n<\/div>\r\n<script>(function(w,q){w[q]=w[q]||[];w[q].push([\"_mgc.load\"])})(window,\"_mgq\");\r\n<\/script>\r\n<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The number one killer on Earth is a bad diet, and high blood pressure is killer number two. The reason it\u2019s so deadly is that it increases your risk of dying from so many different diseases\u2014from heart disease and stroke to kidney and heart failure. There\u2019s an exponential increase in our risk of dying from &hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":6553,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6552","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-health"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/loudhdtv.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6552","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/loudhdtv.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/loudhdtv.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/loudhdtv.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/loudhdtv.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6552"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/loudhdtv.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6552\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/loudhdtv.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/6553"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/loudhdtv.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6552"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/loudhdtv.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6552"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/loudhdtv.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6552"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}