Non-pharmacological treatment of high blood pressure

A month ago I happened to check my blood pressure and found that it was around 170/105. The next day my doctor confirmed it at 170/109.
I'm 41, slim, don't smoke, don't drink more than one alcholic drink a day. Both my parents have been treated for hyptertension with meds.
I generally avoid drugs (and my doctor knows this), but I figured he'd insist on getting my BP down with some prescription. So I was surprised when he said it was treatable and sent me on my way with with an admonishment to watch the salt and get more exercise. Now, I thought I had already been doing this since my BP has been high for many years. But I more diligently read sodium content on labels, ate more dark meat fish, loaded up on fruits, nuts and veggies, and most importantly, exercised every day. The exercise I think is the most important thing, especially since I sit at a desk most of the day. I huff and puff and sweat for at least a half hour. End result is that now my BP is at 130/75. And I feel much more energized and alert. So if anyone has doubts about the efficacy of diet and exercise to control hyptertension, it can work. Of course, discuss it with your doctor.

Very good job. Did you also lose weight? My BP was also high -
140/90 but is now 110/70 without BP meds. For me, the secret was to give up the "Western" diet that Harvard says is responsible for up to
80% of heart disease. Also, to get over one hour a day of exercise and to lose weight (176 to 154). FYI - moderate drinking can lower BP slightly. Moderate for men - one or two drinks a day, for women, one drink a day. Note - ideal BP is 115/75 - so keep watching your BP.
To lower BP check out DASH diet.

Female, 50, 5'8", 155, both sides of family history with HBP, been on monopril about 5 years, generic microzide added 2 months ago, have whitecoat hypertension (up to 190 in emergency room for noncardiac problem), at BP follow up appt. primary care doc last month told me I have labile hypertension.
Should I lose weight? Doctors have never implied I need to lose any weight and in fact my old primary care said I look "trim". :/ Am looking to have minor surgery done under local anesthetic and plan to also take oral valium. Would
30mg oral valium (not via IV) be enough to bring the whitecoat hypertension to acceptable level for the surgery? Thanks for any replies

Thanks for your suggestion, but I have sort of been there. Was at 158 lb and dropping when I got my heart attack. Stopping smoking at that time nearly 42 months ago can easily explain 10 lb of weight gain, without even changing eating habits. The other 2 lb may be the buildup of muscle mass from all the walking. I did weigh about 145 when 18 y.o.
and full height. Think I'd look anorexic at that weight at this age, sagging, but 155 should be a reasonable target.

BTW there were no BP benefits for dropping weight from about 175 to 158 for me.

Will try subtle diet changes to see if I can get my weight down to the 150's again. No panic to try something organized.

I'm sorry Al, but I can't see for the life of me why you are submitting yourself to a blood pressure medication. Your blood pressure was NORMAL before you took HCTZ. You are falling victim to the same sales tactics for hypertension pharmaceuticals that you are so aware of and vigilant about vis a vis cholesterol.

I'm beginning to think this board is filled with a bunch of middle aged male hypochondriacs. Who the hell takes their blood pressure every day?

Al. Take the dog for a walk, then take the wife for a vacation. And while you're at it, tell Chung et al to take a hike.

By Warren Bell, MD (reprinted with author permission)

Lost in all this heated discussion of OTC statin use is the whole issue of the appropriate role of drugs as a treatment for what is manifestly a disease of lifestyle in 95% of cases.
It is interesting to see that the FDA has, without comment, shifted its ground (unless, of course, it was already there beforehand) to a discussion of drug therapy in an utter therapeutic vacuum -- just what the industry wants it to do! No mention of the relative value of exercise, diet, stress, non-drug biological supplements or dietary augmentation (e.g. garlic), or environmental influences (one scientist proposed that heart attacks in Los Angeles on "bad air days" be called 'lung attacks' instead).
In the feeding frenzy around OTC vs Rx availability, we are losing our sense of proportion, and along with it, our humanity. Here's a little more evidence along these lines.

Science in the Public Interest, discusses the safety of supplements.
CSPI is a fine organization, founded out of Ralph Nader's many anti-corporate activities, and usually quite enlightened and hard-hitting in its perpective. Yet the CSPI, in this issue, recommends that children and pregnant women avoid taking garlic and soy isoflavones supplements "until more research is done". The article does acknowledge that "most reactions are rare: in some cases they are based on just one or two reports from physicians". But even allowing for the modest difference in supplementary formulation vs food sources, is this not amazing overkill?
There are dozens of reports of statins causing severe and even fatal reactions. One member of this class, Bayer's Baycol, is off the market because it was the worst of the lot, but the others all do this to some degree -- it's inherent in their mode of action. They all deplete stores of co-enzyme Q10, which is a critical metabolic element in a wide variety of physiological processes.
How many people have turned up in a critical care setting with
"garlic-induced fulminant hepatitis", or "soy isoflavone-related dementia"?! How many people end up in the ER with exercise-induced renal failure? (I'm talking about exercise when "used as directed by recognized experts". How many folks haunt the ICU with
"square-dancing-related pulmonary fibrosis"? How about "music-induced hyperkalemia"?
We're going nutty, driven by a corporate agenda that wants us to see
"a pill for every ill" as the only way to fly. OTC, Rx, coin-operated machines, free give-aways -- industry doesn't care, as long as our first thought, when we feel unwell, is to take a drug.
I believe there is a universal rule of biochemistry underlying all this. Molecules (and the behaviours that produce them) that have been around for a few million years, and tested empirically by billions of people without discernible adverse effects beyond highly predictable or nuisance ones (garlic breath, exercise-induced fatigue, music-related procrastination, love-induced foolishness) are likely to safe. Molecules invented a few months, years, or decades ago by a person who's primary goal is to find a patentable substance that is safe enough to make it through a mickey-mouse testing process onto the market where it is likely to produce billions of dollars of profit -- such molecules are unlikely to be safe, and are potential causes of
"stealth" reactions that are unpredictable and dangerous.
I know there's always exceptions, but I believe the general rule still holds.
And we haven't even mentioned the fact of the industrial world siphoning most of the world's resources in order the create the conditions of super-excess of everything that allow "diseases of affluence" to happen in the first place, and also provide the materials for a huge chemical industry to develop around it. And then using force of arms or threat thereof to maintain this obscene imbalance.

Thanks to both of you, Kipp and Brad, for this information. Very encouraging.

I was put on BP meds with a 24 hour average of 133/83. During the daytime it was often more like 155/88. Did consider this to be more like "exaggerated alertness" and was smoking about 23 cigs per day. Been on 150 mg
Avapro and 12.5 mg HCTZ for over two years.
Been walking about 200 km (125 mi) per month for more than two years.

Because my wife has been on her own diet for several years, I get to experiment. In recent months, added brown rice to my diet. Thought
I would try it because brown rice has nutrients that white rice does not have, and, prior to the development of medication, a rice diet was used to curb high blood pressure. Also, to the two per week brown rice servings, added some Mediterranean ingredients like both kinds of olives, olive oil, eggs, and tuna. Kidney beans, green beans and peas round out the recipe. A little bit of onion is included and the end result is something quite nutritious and palatable, full of interesting flavours and textures.

Saw the doctor on Oct. 1. He took my BP as usual then had me move to the examining table where he had his mercury manometer. After measuring it again he told me 130/72, probably get less than that at home, like
120/??, and cut HCTZ dosage in half, to one quarter of a tablet. (Had not been measuring
BP at home for quite some time.) The sudden move to the different location will certainly have increased my BP to some extent.

I know the drugs subtly effect my sleep cycle, probably the dreaming, and therefore subtly effect daytime disposition. I know this because I went off of them on two occasions and things returned to normal.

Tomorrow I see the doctor for a follow up.
Hopefully I am doing something right and my drugs can be further reduced.

One other thing, since I started all the walking my legs have gotten noticeably heavier. When doing sit-ups, I can do a gradual lift of the torso (no sudden jerk required) as one can do when the ankles are held in place. Leg muscles might have some influence on blood pressure regulation.

Regarding salt: A Dr. Clarence Grimm of
Milwaukee has gone on record as stating that
50% of Caucasians and 75% of African
Americans are salt sensitive. I am one of the former, stayed away from salt for 13 days, until celery stalks tasted salty, with no difference in BP. Therefore, not salt sensitive, but I do not over do it.

A.L. 55 y/o, 77Kg, 175 cm (170 lb, 5'9"
Drugs when necessary, but not necessarily drugs!

No disrespect meant to Dr. Chung. And vacation holiday skedjool, shedual, zed, zee: whatever fits the bill/invoice. Check out www.pbs.org/Frontline on pharmas/research/FDA. Also some timely info there on antihypertensive care.

The similarities between hypertension and
"hypercholesterolemia" have certainly not escaped me.

One good reason not to diagnose things through the internet is because of incomplete information. The 133/83 was let go by my personal physician, but not by the young nephrologist involved at the time. Kidneys are involved. I urinated a painless bowl full of blood six years ago! Did not have much need for doctors before then. They always fixed the little problems that I may have had, always.

On cardiovascular considerations alone, the 1 in 850 stroke benefit, I would not take BP meds at this time in my life, perhaps waiting until after retirement, when a little mental muddlement would not be so annoying.
No, it is a place to exchange some ideas. It is most important for people who do not get straight information and straight answers from their local professionals. Many people take their BP's many times per day, especially those whose first encounter with hypertension are exceedingly high pressures like over 200/130 and the like.

Vacation. Don't you mean holiday? And, Zed, not Zee, isn't it? Have a nice day.

Yes, I should get on with my life, but I find the learning experience here to be quite stimulating.

Thank you for your input. In the human condition, we can always find people worse off than we are... seemingly always.

They gave me drugs to protect my kidneys, which probably cause my heart attack. Then they wanted to give me drugs to protect my heart, which may damage my liver. I chose to seek additional information. Oh yes, three years ago there was no widespread talk about the statins wrecking hearts and other muscles, only that liver enzymes need to be monitored.

A.L.

(Dr. Chung is a very important element in this forum. No one need agree with him on a continuing basis, but he is sharing his considerable store of knowledge quite generously. And, yes, he is a human being. We humans do suffer from misconceptions from time to time.)

They might help each other out without having to see a doctor and/or spend a night in a sleep clinic. If their conditions were rare or dangerous, one of the physicians would surely intervene.

Not of interest to me, but, certainly, of interest to some.

A.L. (Edgar Allen Poe instructs us to first look under the floor boards.)

Your "ideal" body weight is 132 pounds (for BMI=20). You might be 23 pounds overweight. The closer your weight got to 132, the better your blood pressure should be.

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