About 30 million
people in the United States have high blood-pressure according to
statistics from the National Center for Health Statistics. That puts
it as the third most prevalent chronic disease in the United States,
behind sinusitis and arthritis. More important than its rank is the
actual effect of high blood pressure on older Americans. Of all the
risk factors associated with heart disease, none seem to be more
predictive of exactly who will get cardiovascular disease after the
age of 65, than high blood pressure. On the positive
side, about 70% of individuals have mild hypertension (high blood
pressure) that is, diastolic pressure that falls somewhere between 90
and 100 mm Hg. For this population, there have been some welcome
changes in treatment with a much higher emphasis being placed on
non-drug therapy.
Dr. Norman Kaplan,
an authority on high blood pressure at the University of Texas Health
Science Center at Dallas Southwestern Medical School has stated that
"for most people with mild hypertension, just about everyone now
agrees that the non-drug approach should be the first line of
defense-or should at least be tried." The natural remedies below are
designed to help those with a mild level of hypertension or high blood
pressure, attain some control over their condition. Obviously
however, you should always consult your physician before implementing
changes.
Blood pressure: 17
Ways to Keep it Under Control
(1)Watching your
weight.
Dr. Kaplan stated:
"While there are a lot of hypertensives who are not fat, obese people
tend to have three times as much hypertension as people of normal
weight." Obesity is usually considered to be when an individual is 20%
above ideal weight for their height and bone structure. However,
obese people do not really need to lose anywhere near that much weight
to reduce their risk for high blood pressure. An Israeli study
indicated that “stout” people with high blood pressure can frequently
achieve normal blood pressures by losing about half of their excess
weight, even though they may still be considered to be considerably
overweight. Dr. Kaplan continued by saying that "Even with relatively
minor amounts of weight loss, one can see a measurable fall in blood
pressure." He concluded in saying that, "We encourage obese people to
lose all the weight they can. But if they can't lose a whole lot, at
least whatever they do lose should give them some help with their
blood pressure."
(2) Shaking the
salt habit.
The link between
sodium and high blood pressure has never been proven conclusively.
However, it is known that there are individuals who have a salt
sensitive subset of high blood pressure, and you may be one of them.
"There's no way to know if you're salt sensitive other than putting
yourself on a low sodium diet and see what effect that has on your
blood pressure," Dr. Kaplan says. “So we just ask all our
hypertensives to cut down on salt to about 5 grams a day and hope it
has a good affect." While that is considered be about half of the
typical salt intake of an American diet, Dr. Kaplan notes that "most
people, once they cut down, really don't find they need as much salt
as they thought they did." So just keep the salt intake down while not
counting on it to be the complete answer to reducing your high blood
pressure.
(3) Cutting down
on alcohol.
