Blood pressure related illness is killing and maiming too many every single day. And guess what? It has NOTHING to do with cholesterol. Yet statins are actually linked to strokes and other BP associated issues.
Yet for the most part this damage is needless - whether you have plaque, fatty deposits or blood clots; whether your blood is thicker than it should be; whether it is sticky; whether your circulatory system is weak or damaged; whether your heart has insufficiencies.
In fact any abnormality that can affect your blood pressure, the correct diet and lifestyle can dramatically improve your health - blood pressure notwithstanding. Inflammation is caused by lifestyle - diet, habits, toxic exposure - and both cholesterol and blood pressure is linked to various inflammatory processes.
Rather than go to a doctor for 'a' symptom or one issue, we need to address our entire being. Blood pressure, aches and pains, obesity, diabetes, etc, etc, etc - none of these things just appear. They take years to appear and are the culmination of ignoring warning signs. Much like the person with indigestion who takes mylanta for 10 years is shocked to 'suddenly' have diverticulitis or colon cancer. Seriously? Doctors and media have trained the public to bandaid symptoms rather than address them. But back to the issue at hand...
I can already hear excuses and gnashing of the teeth. Coming from a medical background I never thought this possible, until I saw it with my own eyes. While you may not need all of these, chances are you will need more than one or two.
So many easy steps are possible -
Simple acupressure exercises
Passive and weight-bearing/resistance exercises
Removal of toxic chemicals from the house and personal care
Diet attention
Reduction in side-effect laden medications (almost half the cases tested were caused by medication side effects)
Reduction of addictive substances - including coffee, alcohol, etc
The right natural therapies and supplements.
This list may look simplistic but millions of individual cases (termed anecdotal by medicine, despite their vast numbers) are proving that success can be achieved, where medicine is failing. We hear of sad stories every day - many avoidable. But what we don't hear of is the number of people who still die of blood pressure and stroke related cases despite the 'best' medical attention.
The simple acupressure technique used by millions of health experts and individuals worldwide to not just reduce or increase blood pressure but correct it permanently can be done at home with the end of a finger or blunt object like a pen end. It is as simple as massage on one acupuncture point -
to reduce blood pressure in cases of hypertension (high blood pressure) you simply rotate clockwise
to increase blood pressure in a person with hypotension (low blood pressure) you rotate anti-clockwise to tonify the point
I have proven this many times clinically with my blood pressure patients by taking BP prior to commencing treatment, and then once again 15 minutes later. I am yet to see one person not respond 100%. The more this is repeated, the longer the results.
I recommend 3 minutes, 3 times a day for mild bloodpressure irregularities, both chronic and acute, and as often as you like - say hourly - in dangerously high/low blood pressure.
To find your homeostatic point
1. Acupressure is as beneficial as acupuncture and for needle-phobics it has added benefits. Termed LI11 (large intestine 11) you find it by bending the elbow - the highest (or fattiest) point of the crease at the end of the fold. Some feel happier drawing a dot at the point with a non-toxic permanent marker for easier location. You can take your BP at home to monitor change, or check at your pharmacy each time you are nearby.
2. Every single one of us benefits from exercise - it increases blood movement around the body. Some find that blood pressure can increase or decrease with excessive exercise so should always adjust accordingly. I have clinically and personally witnessed patients come close to death simply by ignoring this, and the reason is often dietary. By removing the foods responsible, they could return once again to their favourite activities. Weight bearing exercise has shown for some time that minerals and other vital micro nutrients, enzymes and elements are relocated to their true place in cellular health. This is true also with resistance exercise like water activities, band-type fitness, even walking with small ankle weights or lifting small weights. Another major benefit here is that it encourages calcium back into the bones and out of soft tissues - including blood vessels (plaque).
3. Our skin is our largest organ and it goes over our heads (and that of our doctors) that what we are surrounded by is absorbed through our skin into our bodies 24/7. This can be anything from organ damage, tissue damage, right through to cancer and death. Millions die this way every year, but rather than lay blame at the feet of the companies responsible, each case is given some fancy terminology to cover up, even unwittingly, just why the individual has died. This includes some natural and even officially tagged by our leading groups as healthy. Molecular structure of our skin care and cleaning products for example can be so small that it passes the blood barrier - including absorption into the heart and brain. These particles are transported via our blood and often become part of the sticky mess that is plaque. This mess is not a mystery - it is formed by wayward calcium (thanks to mismanagement of supplementation by people who are not trained in either dietetics or nutrition), lack of sunlight (low vitamin D causes release of calcium into the blood ie brittle bones and rheumatism), toxic chemicals, fatty deposits caused by over eating processed foods. It is simply not as easy as popping a pill and having your blood pressure checked!
4. The right food is vital. How many athletes are falling apart, aging before their time? Fitness is no indicator of health and even that will fail eventually. I personally know many ex athletes who died long before their time - blood pressure linked and riddled with arthritis and heart disease. It is NOT okay to eat in moderation - that lie was formulated by medical experts not trained in diet - or the ability to fight temptation. Likewise, it is NOT okay to follow dietary advice from medical experts who are not trained in it. Sadly, many of today's dietitians are trained, learning from the same books that our school home economics teachers learn from - the same books written by the industries who stand to gain the most (which also happen to be the foods we should not eat IF we want to be healthy) - meat, wheat, sugar, dairy....
Our diet must be plant based. Not just because it is God's first diet. Any other diet is not going to offer enough protein, calcium, magnesium, iron, anti oxidants or any of the vital nutrients we need. It really is that simple. Any other argument simply reflects addiction and habit. The standard western diet is acidic - these acids form all manner of toxic compounds while causing inflammation of various bodily systems - circulatory system is just one of them. Please see my extensive posts on alkaline diet.
5. One of the reasons I opted out of med school and studied 'alternatives' instead was because I never understood why anyone who took the hippocratic oath could offer options that cause more side effects than they cure. Sure, get into medicine to cure and heal, but what then? Ignore the reason you did it in the first place? And patients are somehow hoodwinked into believing that new disease has nothing to do with side effects! Speak to your health professional about alternatives if you have side effects. Or see an alternative health care professional. You should never have to take one medication to stop the side effects of another one - especially if you are then 'diagnosed' with a disorder that was caused by medication.
One of my most frustrating cases involved an octogenarian who was vitally healthy and fit thanks to a largely natural lifestyle, but had recently fallen many metres from a rooftop and caused a hairline fracture of his pelvis. He had continued to walk around for 2 weeks before the pain forced him to a doctor - the fracture was detected and he was duly put on a whole range of meds. The doctor insisted 'at your age you must have hypertension, brittle bones, cholesterol and pre-diabetes'. He called me days later, unable to walk due to excessive fluid retention, had skin bleeds, was too dizzy to stand, his eyelids were swollen and was crying. He thought he was going to die - all of these symptoms were known side effects of the drugs he had been put on. He went back to the doctor who took one look at him and said "I told you that you must be unwell at your age." He stopped them that day and called me a week later - totally free of his symptoms. A course of good supplements and spending time outside without sunglasses raised his vitamin D levels and assisted the healing of his pelvis. He is just one case in so many similar stories. Anecdotes as medicine calls it, as if individuals do not matter.
6. Addictive substances can alter our bodies in ways that many of us never consider. Alcohol can thicken your blood simply by acting as a modified diuretic. This is dangerous especially alongside medications. Coffee works in much the same way. This can include addictive substances that are prescription drugs such as opiates.
7. With the recent wave of pharmacies getting on board, and post PAN crisis, many nutraceutical companies have been bought out by pharma and are often synthetic, badly combined (aka not synergistically blended or formulated) and filled with nothing but fillers to bulk up the tablets. Reading contents lists on today's OTC supplements (and even some so-called practitioner only brands) fills me with dread. There are actually few companies I would even recommend but for those I do, it means a synergistically formulated range which contains whole and superfoods and ingredients that are known and well researched with documented evidence to prove that it can not only heal but cure. Legally we are not meant to claim this - and the company sure isn't allowed to. But as I no longer practice, I am free to share what I know to be true. See your natural health practitioner for more information.
And visit the following references to back up the above:
- and for goodness sake, going by the sheer amount of money being spent on google alone to discredit safe and effective alternatives, work it out for yourself. The answers are here - but they wont make pharma any money. If they do, they all of a sudden become very popular in medicine and eventually overpriced and out of reach by those of us who have prescribed them in the past.