What are Natural Remedies for Hypertension?

Why don’t more doctors use natural cures for high blood pressure ?

Before we go any further, I need to clarify an important point. Type I or essential hypertension has no cure. The word “cure” has the connotation that once you treat high blood pressure, either with drugs or a natural method and your numbers go down, then you’re “cured” , you no longer have hypertension and you can stop treating it. But that’s not the case at all. In almost every instance, if you stop doing what lowered your blood pressure, it will go back up. Therefore, I will try to avoid using the word “cure”.

The only natural remedies for high blood pressure most people know about are diet and exercise.

If you’ve been diagnosed with hypertension or pre-hypertension and you are overweight, your doctor may have mentioned that you need to lose some weight by watching what you eat and getting some exercise.

With some doctors that’s the extent of it, then he or she writes you a prescription for one or more hypertension drugs.

The primary reason for this is most doctors rely on what they were educated in, primarily the use of pharmaceuticals to treat illnesses. In many cases their education in nutrition or exercise science or anything else that might be categorized as natural was minimal.

But that’s changing, medical schools are teaching more preventive medicine – how to stay healthy not just fix problems. They’re teaching future doctors the essential part nutrition plays in maintaining health and preventing illness.

Many doctors are taking continuing education courses because they’re tired of treating their patients with drugs that may help their symptoms, but have sometime serious side effects and don’t fix the underlying problems that caused the symptoms in the first place. Hopefully that includes your doctor.

The two biggies: Nutrition and Exercise

Proper nutrition and exercise more than any other natural methods can help to lower your blood pressure and improve your overall health.
And may help prevent hypertension if you don’t now have it.

Vitamins, minerals and herbal supplements

Of all the supplements that have been linked to lowering blood pressure, the minerals potassium and magnesium are the standouts. Others include vitamin C, calcium, hawthorne berry, garlic and folic acid. We will cover these and more in other articles.

The most important thing to remember about vitamins, minerals, and herbs is the definition of the word supplement. According to Websters Dictionary, a supplement is: something added, especially to make up for a lack or deficiency.

Your primary source for any vitamin or mineral should be the food you eat. That’s how your body was designed to obtain it’s vitamins and minerals.

Alternative therapies

Any of the above treatment methods can also be considered alternative to conventional western medicine. Many of these remedies have been successful in other cultures for hundreds of years, and are now slowly being adopted in the west.

These alternative therapies include:

• Holistic medicine
• Chiropractic
• Homeopathy
• Meditation
• Breathing for Relaxation
• Hypnosis or Hypnotherapy  (nobody’s going to make you quack like a duck).
• Acupuncture
• Naturopathy
• Ayurvedic
• Traditional Chinese medicine
• Yoga

One size does not fit all

If you’ve been subscribed a drug for hypertension (or another illness), your doctor did a follow up with you to make sure that the drug was getting the results she wanted. If not, she may have adjusted your dosage, changed to another medication, or added another medicine.

The reason – we’re all different, what works for you may not work for me.

The same is true for alternative treatments. What lowers my blood pressure 10 points may have no affect at all on you.

And just as your doctor may prescribe a combination of drugs to get the desired results, a combination of natural remedies will probably give you the best results.

One last note. Don’t expect the fast results that you may get from pharmaceuticals. It may take several weeks or longer to start seeing a drop in your blood pressure. So you’ll have to be patient. Hey, that will help too. Become more patient – lower your stress – lower your numbers.

Exercise and Hypertension

Exercise Reduces Blood Pressure in 75% of People with Hypertension

First the good news – Exercise will lower your blood pressure and you may be able to reduce or even stop taking your high blood pressure medications.  If you don’t now have hypertension, then exercise will help prevent it.

The bad news – It’s exercise !

“Exercise relieves stress. Nothing relieves exercise.”
Takayuki Ikkaku, Arisa Hosaka and Toshihiro Kawabata in
Animal Crossing: Wild World, 2005

Why choose exercise over medication?

Ok, so why not just pop a pill and be done with it?  For starters, how about side effects. Depending on the hypertension medication your doctor prescribes, you may experience one or more of the following:

• Constipation
• Drowsiness and Fatigue
• Headaches
• Dizziness and Fainting
• Dehydration
• Dry Mouth
• Frequent urination at night
• An increased sensitivity to cold weather
• An increased sensitivity to sunlight
• Bleeding gums
• Stomach upset
• Impotence
• Persistent cough
• Fluid Retention
• Heart Arrhythmia

Now let’s compare those to the possible side effects of exercise:

• Strengthening of your heart and cardiovascular system
• Increased energy levels
• Increased endurance
• Reduced body fat
• Weight loss
• Helps eliminate shortness of breath
• Strengthens your bones
• Better balance
• Increased overall strength and muscle tone
• Joint flexibility
• Reduced risk of type II diabetes
• Reduced risk of stroke
• Better quality sleep
• Lower stress hormone levels
• Reduces anxiety and depression
• Makes you look and feel better
• Increased self-esteem
• Can increase effectiveness of hypertension medications
• And of course helps regulate your blood pressure

Ok, so I think exercise wins that round.

While many consider hypertension to be a disease, in many cases it’s a symptom of another underlying illness.  Blood pressure medications lower high blood pressure by tricking the body with chemicals.  They don’t treat the underlying causes and you don’t receive any of the benefits of exercise listed above.

Does Lack of Exercise Cause Hypertension?

The definitive answer is sometimes.  It would seem to be common sense that if exercise reduces blood pressure, than not exercising will cause it to rise,  However, there are plenty of couch potatoes out there who’d break into a sweat running to the bathroom during a commercial and they don’t have high blood pressure.  But, with the right combination of poor lifestyle choices (ie: smoking, poor diet) and a genetic predisposition to hypertension, lack of exercise is a major contributing factor to high blood pressure.

So what’s next, join a gym?

Your 1st step should be to consult your health care professional.  It’s a good idea no matter what age and shape you’re in, but particularly if:

• You are over age 40
• You smoke
• You are overweight
• You have a family history of heart disease
• You have any chronic illnesses (heart disease, hypertension, arthritis, diabetes, etc.)
• You haven’t had a physical in the last few years
• You take any medications (exercise can affect the way some medications work)

He or she can advise you about any precautions you must take regarding your present physical condition.  If you have dangerously high blood pressure, it may be necessary to bring it down to a safer level with medication before you can begin exercising.

Next, decide on what type of physical activity you want to participate in.  No, you don’t have to join a gym or buy expensive exercise equipment.  You can do something as simple as taking a daily walk.  However, a leisurely stroll though the park won’t do you much good, you have to exert yourself.  Just remember to take it easy in the beginning, especially if you aren’t accustomed to physical exertion.

Can I quit after my blood pressure comes down?

In one respect, medication and exercise are alike. In order to keep your blood pressure under control, you need to maintain an active lifestyle. Any reduction in blood pressure numbers as a result of exercise will disappear if you stop.

Beans, Beans They’re Good for Your Heart….

Beans, beans they’re good for your heart the more you eat the more you….. , well you know how the rest of it goes.  Turns out this little rhyme has some truth to it.  The rotten egg odor in really smelly, uh, breaking wind, um, passing gas, flatulence, ok…farts, comes from hydrogen sulfide.  According to new research, cells that line the blood vessels of mice produce hydrogen sulfide and it helps to prevent high blood pressure by relaxing the blood vessels of the mice.  And the hydrogen sulfide may have the same benefits for humans.

“Now that we know hydrogen sulfide’s role in regulating blood pressure, it may be possible to design drug therapies that enhance its formation as an alternative to the current methods of treatment for hypertension,” said Johns Hopkins neuroscientist Solomon H. Snyder, M.D., a co-author of the study detailed in the Oct. 24th issue of the journal Science.

I’m not so sure I like where this is going.  Do you get a free can of air freshener with each prescription?

However, you can reap the benefits by including sulfur rich foods, such as garlic and onions in your diet.

P.S. By the way, beans are good for your heart.  They’re loaded with soluble fiber and flavanoids, helping to reduce cholesterol and inhibiting adhesion in blood platelets which lowers the risk of a heart attack or stroke.

Source: MSNBC Health

Chiropractic Treatment for Hypertension

A special chiropractic adjustment, known as the Atlas Adjustment, is showing promise as a therapy for lowering high blood pressure.  An initial  placebo-controlled study of fifty patients with early stage high blood pressure was begun by George Bakris, MD after a colleague told him that he had been sending  patients (some of whom had hypertension)  to a chiropractor for un-related treatments, and after seeing the chiropractor, their blood pressure had normalized.

The adjustment is applied to the Atlas vertebra (the C-1 vertebra) located at the very top of the spinal column.  It is thought that injury or mis-alignment of the Atlas vertebra may affect blood flow through the arteries that pass through the vertebra at the base of the skull.

25 patients in the study received the proper treatment while the other half received a placebo adjustment (that did not affect the C-1 vertebra).  Those who received the proper treatment averaged a 14 point drop in their systolic and 8 point drop in their diastolic blood pressure.  None of the participants received medication during the eight week study.  

Because of the encouraging results of this initial study, Dr. Bakris, director of the University of Chicago Hypertension Center is conducting a much bigger clinical trial.

Guided Relaxation Helps Reduce Hypertension

 A small study of elderly people with high blood pressure compared the use of guided relaxation methods against listening to classical music.  Both methods lowered blood pressure.  However, the guided relaxation methods with it’s deep breathing instructions lowered systolic pressure more.  Diastolic pressure, the second number in blood pressure readings, improved comparably.
 Source:   Medicine Net.com

Hypertension Patients Not Told to Exercise

Most patients with high blood pressure listen when their doctors tell them to exercise more.  Armed with data from a government health survey, researchers concluded that only a third of  U.S. adults with hypertension were counseled by their doctors to get regular exercise.  Just over 70% of patients told to exercise did so, resulting in lower blood pressure than patients who did not exercise.

Source:  www.health.am