Natural Alternatives for High Blood Pressure

Do you have friends or relatives with high blood pressure or taking blood pressure medication? Statistics show that approximately 32% of men and 27% of women have high blood pressure or on medication. This is an exceptionally high number of Australian’s affected by something that is predominantly a lifestyle condition.

If you are healthy your heart and blood vessels work together in a balanced manner to deliver blood to every tissue and organ in your body keeping you alive and well. If you have high blood pressure, there is a narrowing in the veins and arteries that deliver blood around the body which leads to increased pressure. Continuous high blood pressure can damage your heart, kidneys, eyes, and blood vessels in the brain.

How is High Blood Pressure Diagnosed?

Your Naturopath or general practitioner will take your blood pressure as part of a routine check up. In Australia, high blood pressure is defined as:

• systolic blood pressure greater than or equal to 140 mmHg, or
• diastolic blood pressure greater than or equal to 90 mmHg.

If you have been diagnosed with high blood pressure you can also purchase home test units that allow you to easily monitor your blood pressure yourself.

Lifestyle Strategies to Control Blood Pressure

The major causes of high blood pressure are largely lifestyle related and living a healthy, well balanced, lifestyle can help you to keep your blood pressure well out of the danger zone. Try some of the following suggestions for improved blood pressure control:

• Modify your diet to increase energy from good fats and protein sources. Limit your intake of simple carbohydrates and grains which leads to metabolic acidosis and causes your body to release calcium into the blood stream to maintain internal pH. Free calcium is one of the key ingredients in the arterial plaques that lead to high blood pressure.
• Control your cholesterol levels by emphasising good fats and avoiding trans fats. Oxidised bad cholesterol sticks to walls of arteries and veins contributing to the narrowing and increasing blood pressure.
• Reduce or modify stress levels. Our bodies natural response to stress includes a combination of constriction of arteries and veins in many parts of the bodies and dilation and an enlargement in the muscles. This increases blood pressure to fuel muscles with the needed nutrients to fight or flee.

Our Naturopathic team can design a program specifically for your needs and goals. If you’re affected by high blood pressure talk to us today.

Nutrients for Blood Pressure

Considering how wide spread high blood pressure is, it is not surprising that there are many well researched nutritional and herbal medicines available. We regularly use these in our clinic and have found them to be highly effective and without the side effects of many pharmaceutical medications.

Magnesium

Magnesium is one of the most widely used minerals in the human body and it’s role in controlling high blood pressure is no exception. It has consistently been found that higher concentrations of Magnesium in the blood led to a lower incidence of high blood pressure and that Magnesium supplementation effectively and rapidly reduces blood pressure.

We generally recommend the use of powdered Magnesium supplements for better bio availability and up to 6 grams of Magnesium daily. Results can usually be seen in as little as one to two weeks of regular use.

Long term, ensuring optimal Magnesium levels means regularly consuming dark, leafy, green vegetables. Plants such as Kale and Dandelion greens are particularly high in Magnesium and are great additions to salads or stir fries.

Fish Oil

The mediterranean diet is widely regarded as one of the most effective diets for controlling high blood pressure and cardiovascular disease. This diet, emphasising energy from good fats and lean protein sources is also exceptionally high in dietary levels of Omega 3 essential fatty acids, particularly EPA and DHA.

Typical Australian diets, low in Omega 3 and high in Omega 6 essential fatty acids, have been shown to predispose towards increased production of inflammatory agents that lead to a constricting of veins and arteries within your body. Increasing the supplemental, or dietary, level of Omega 3’s helps to reverse this effect.

Omega 3 essential fatty acids can be obtained from many dietary sources including oily fish, eggs, and grass fed organic meats. We typically recommend the use of supplementation with a high strength liquid fish oil for faster results.

Bonito Peptides

This secret, fishy, ingredient in many Japanese culinary masterpieces has been shown to be an effective way of controlling high blood pressure.

Bonito functions by reducing your bodies production of angiotensin II. Angiotensin II is commonly secreted by the liver and is one of the chemical messengers responsible for constriction of blood vessels. Where high blood pressure is a problem, reducing the production of angiotensin II can help to bring down blood pressure.

The therapeutic dose of bonito peptides is usually about 1.5 – 3 grams per day, which would involved quite a lot of miso to obtain from food sources alone. We regularly use a supplemental preparation of bonito peptides in the clinic with fantastic results, many people reporting significant drops in blood pressure within seven days of use.