Lowering Blood Pressure

Cholesterol is the most common and essential waxy steroid of fat found in the blood plasma of humans. It will be produced in the liver or intestines. It plays a important role in the formation of bile acids, vitamin D, and hormones like progesterone, estrogens, androgens, mineral corticoids, glucocorticoids. The normal functioning and permeability of cell membranes is due to normal levels of cholesterol. Cholesterol levels in blood originate from liver production and dietary intake. The liver produces approximately 70% of cholesterol and other 30% comes from dietary intake.

The two types of cholesterol are LDL (low density lipoprotein) and HDL (high density lipoprotein). Elevated levels of LDL or bad cholesterol are associates with the risk of coronary heart disease.

Elevated levels of LDL cholesterol forms a hard and thick substance called cholesterol plaque along the inside artery walls, thus narrowing the artery and preventing the blood flow and increase in blood pressure. This process of thickening and narrowing is called atherosclerosis. HDL or good cholesterol helps in extracting and disposing cholesterol from artery walls through liver metabolism and thus help in preventing atherosclerosis.

The factors which cause high blood cholesterol levels are diet, exercise, body weight, age and gender, hereditary, and underlying medical conditions.

Dietary intake of large quantities of foods such as red meat and high fat dairy products, fried foods, baked goods and pastries amount in increase level of cholesterol. By cutting down the intake of these foods and replacing those with fruits and vegetables can reduce cholesterol levels.

Sedentary lifestyles have become a part of our day-to-day living and thus people tend to exercise less. Due to lack of exercise, habits such as smoking and drinking and poor dietary intake, obesity has become a major problem in all cities. Cholesterol levels thus increase in individual with less activity and poor dietary intake which have resulted in increased risk for coronary heart disease. Habits such as smoking can lower the levels of HDL or good cholesterol thus increasing LDL or bad cholesterol. Smoking interferes with the ability of HDL to extract and dispose fatty deposits from walls of artery and thus narrowing the blood vessels, thus increasing the blood cholesterol and also high blood pressure.

By doing regular exercise and by healthy eating habits is necessary in controlling high blood cholesterol which in turn into high blood pressure. High blood cholesterol may be due to hereditary factors, it may run in the families. Particular medical conditions like high blood pressure and diabetes increase the risk factor developing high cholesterol in a person. When a person is suffers high blood pressure an extra force on artery walls damages the arteries thus raises the accumulation of fat deposits in the body. The high blood sugar levels will damage the lining of arteries thus increases LDL while reducing HDL cholesterol. All these factors sum up to increase in blood cholesterol which will result’s into increase of blood pressure.

8 million people in the US suffer with high blood pressure. One in three of those can’t get it under control, which can lead to heart disease, stroke or kidney failure.

A new implant is literally changing the minds of those who can’t get relief from drugs alone.

Robert Breece is one of 27 million Americans living with what is referred to as “resistant” hypertension because blood pressure stays high despite taking at least three drugs. Robert was taking seven.

“I’ve taken many drugs over the years, trying to find combinations that work,” Breece says. “My blood pressure was out of control and it would have led to my death.”

So when Dr. Dominic Sica told Robert about an investigational implant that could help him control his blood pressure, he decided to give it a try, even if it was a mind trick of sorts.

“It is trickery at its finest physiological point of view,” says Sica, the Director of the Blood Pressure Disorders Unit at the Virginia Commonwealth University Health System.

Here’s how it works: the hypertension device is implanted into the chest and attaches two electrodes to the carotid arteries. It then sends a signal to the brain, fooling it into thinking the blood pressure is higher than it is.

“The brain then says ‘Let me turn off various pathways by which then brain controls blood pressure’ and when that happens those mechanisms are down regulated and the blood pressure tends to come down,” Sica explains.

Patients may still need to take some medications. Robert is now only taking four and his blood pressure dropped from 225 over 125 to 128 over 68.

“It’s made a huge difference. I don’t worry about my blood pressure,” he says.

The device is not for everyone so make sure to consult with your doctor. It is designed for people who have severe cases of high blood pressure that can’t be controlled with medication. Patients must also be committed to having the battery surgically replaced every few years.

If you’re looking for a natural way to help keep your blood pressure lower, think kiwi. The little green fruit is found in a small study to lower blood pressure almost 4 points systolic, compared with eating apples.

The finding comes from Mette Svendsen of Oslo University Hospital, presented at the American Heart Association’s Scientific Sessions.

Svendsen and colleagues randomly assigned 50 men and 68 women, with mild hypertension to eat either 3 kiwis a day or one apple a day for 8 weeks. No other dietary changes were made.

Ambulatory blood pressure monitoring was used to track the participants’ blood pressure readings during daily activities.

The researchers suspect kiwi lowers blood pressure similar to dark green vegetables that contain lutein, a carotenoid and antioxidant linked to vascular and eye health.

Three kiwis a day is found in the study to naturally lower blood pressure 3.6mg/Hg systolic – the top number – compared to apples in the investigation.

The authors write, “Three kiwi a day improved 24-hour BP more than an apple a day. Incorporating kiwi intake as part of DASH or other diets for treatment of hypertension should be studied.

Eating a variety of colorful fruits and vegetables is the best way to balance nutrition for optimal health. Kiwis can be considered a worthwhile dietary addition to help keep blood pressure just a little bit lower.

Campaigners searching for ways to tackle dementia, which affects more than 800,000 people in Britain, have hailed the findings by academics at Bristol University as “an important step forward”.

The study of almost 60,000 people in Britain over 60, found those taking a particular type of blood pressure lowering drug were 50 per cent less likely to develop Alzheimer’s, than those on other types of anti-hypertensive medication.

They were also 25 per cent less likely to develop vascular dementia, the second most common form of the brain-wasting disease.

The drugs which appear to have the most protective effect are called angiotensin II receptor blockers, or ARBs. They are commonly prescribed to under 55s to tackle high blood pressure. Millions are thought to take them already.

These affect the renin angiotensin system, which helps regulate blood pressure and fluid balance.

Another type of drug to affect this system, called angiotensin converting enzyme inhibitors (or ACE-Is), also appeared to have a protective effect, although it was only about half as strong.

Dr Patrick Kehoe of Bristol University’s school of clinical sciences and the charity Alzheimer’s Research UK, who co-authored the report, said it was the first large-scale trial to find such an association.

He said: “If these results are borne out in clinical trials, then we’ll have a swathe of drugs that could be used against Alzheimer’s.

“On a personal level I’m very excited because this is something I have been working on for a decade.”

However, he cautioned that their use to combat dementia was “a little way off” because the observational study, which used anonymised data from the General Practice Research Database, did not prove causation.

“That’s the million dollar question,” he added.

“Nobody should be rushing to their doctor saying they want to be put on these just yet.”

However, results of the trial, published in the Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease, did account for underlying differences in blood pressure between individuals.

This is important because people with high blood pressure are known to be at a higher risk of Alzheimer’s and vascular dementia than others.

Dr Kehoe thus explained that the halving of risk was over and above anything brought about by the drugs’ effect on lowering blood pressure.

He said laboratory studies showed that the drugs interacted with the root causes of Alzheimer’s and vascular dementia.

Dr Simon Ridley, head of research at Alzheimer’s Research UK, said: “This study highlights the potential for particular blood pressure drugs to help with Alzheimer’s disease. If these findings can be supported in clinical trials, this could be an important step forward.

“With over 820,000 people in the UK living with dementia, there is a desperate need to find new treatments and prevention strategies.”

 A study showed that women who take vacations are less depressed and the benefits of lowering blood pressure are astounding.

You do not always need medicine to lower your blood pressure. By making some lifestyle changes, you can lower your blood pressure and reduce your risk of heart disease.

Lifestyle plays an important role in controlling high blood pressure. If you treat your blood pressure with a healthy lifestyle, you can avoid, delay or reduce the need for medication.

Lowering your blood pressure can pay off in significant reductions in your risk of strokes and heart attacks, regardless of your age and even if your readings are already in the normal range.

Women who take vacations are less depressed and less tired and men at risk for heart disease are less likely to die from the disease when they take vacations, according to a 2005 study published in the Wisconsin Medical Journal.

Health-conscious cooks could soon be serving up a new superfood – the purple potato.

Provided it is cooked without fat, it has been proved to lower blood pressure and doesn’t even make you put on weight.

The deep color of the Purple Majesty variety comes from the same compounds found in acai berries, blueberries, blackberries, blackcurrants, red cabbage and aubergines.

U.S. researchers found that when eaten by overweight patients with high blood pressure, it was as effective as porridge oats in lowering their reading.

The experts monitored 18 volunteers, who ate six to eight golf-ball-sized potatoes with skins twice daily for a month. Their average diastolic blood pressure dropped by 4.3 per cent and the systolic pressure decreased by 3.5 per cent.

If your GP says your blood pressure is ‘140 over 90’, it means you have a systolic pressure of 140 and a diastolic pressure of 90.

High blood pressure associated with obesity can result in strokes and early death.

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Purple Majesty contains an abundance of polyphenols, natural nutrients which are said to play a part in decreasing the risk of heart disease, cancer and neurodegenerative diseases. The colour comes from anthocyanins, a group of health-enhancing polyphenols.

The study findings could help resurrect the reputation of the potato, which is seen by dieters as a food to avoid.

It also fails to qualify as one of five vegetable and fruit portions which should be eaten each day.

Dr Joe Vinson, who led the research at the University of Scranton in Pennsylvania, said: ‘The potato, more than perhaps any other vegetable, has an undeserved bad reputation that has led many health-conscious people to ban them from their diet.

‘Mention potato and people think “fattening, high-carbs, empty calories”. In reality, when prepared without frying, and served without butter, margarine, or sour cream, one potato has only 110 calories and dozens of healthful phytochemicals and vitamins. We hope our research helps to remake the potato’s nutritional image.’

Despite the livid colour, the purple potato tastes similar to the more conventional varieties with white flesh.

Now on sale in Sainsbury’s at £1.50 for 2.5kg, it is grown in Scotland by the Albert Bartlett company. The 60-year-old family-run company, based in Airdrie, already supplies more than 85,000 tons of various Scottish potato varieties for sale through the chain throughout the UK.

Its head of development, Gillian Kynoch, said: ‘The Purple Majesty performs beautifully in the kitchen, mashing, baking, roasting and microwaving to perfection.’ Sainsbury’s will also be selling new purple potato wedges or ‘witch’s fingers’ in time for Halloween. A spokesman said: ‘We believe Purple Majesty could become the prince of potatoes, heralding the start of a long purple reign.’

Drinking sugar-sweetened beverages such as pop and fruit drinks may increase blood pressure in adults, researchers have found.

Researchers from the School of Public Health at Imperial College in London analyzed the diets of nearly 2,600 middle-aged people in the U.S. and the U.K.

They found that people drinking more than one soda or other sugar-sweetened beverage a day had higher blood pressure, and that it kept going up the more they drank. After accounting for weight and other risk factors, that habit seemed to still put them at greater risk for cardiovascular problems.

Now the American Beverage Association is warning people not to jump to conclusions. In a statement sent to Shots, ABA takes issue with the study for lumping in U.S. and U.K. sodas, which are made from different sweeteners.

Research associate Ian Brown says that despite the difference, the blood pressure effects were the same across the pond.

ABA says: “Regrettably, this study does nothing more than distract the public from widely accepted and clinically proven approaches to lowering the risk for hypertension and heart disease.” You know, doing the boring stuff like diet and exercise.

In the new study, the highest blood pressure levels were found in people who consumed both more glucose and fructose — the most common beverage sweeteners — and more salt. That may be because studies have shown that increased sugar consumption leads people to retain more salt, Brown says.

“It’s bad news for people who like chips and fizzy drinks,” Brown jokes, adding that everything in moderation is OK.

The researchers also found that people who drank more than one sugary drink a day consumed nearly 400 more calories than those who didn’t. And their diets were more likely to lack key nutrients like potassium, magnesium and calcium.

“This is because they’re getting the calories from these nutrient-poor sources. All they provide is the calories — none of the benefits of real foods,” Brown says.

To get the results, the researchers relied on the participants to report what they ate and drank for four days in interviews with trained observers, and let researchers collect their urine and do blood pressure readings during two 24-hour cycles.

The new study seems to bolster previous research showing that cutting back even just a serving of soda a day can help lower blood pressure for those most at risk.

Still, the broader health questions raised have led to efforts to get soda out of schools, and many states to consider a soda tax.

But don’t sit there sanctimoniously thinking that your diet soda is going to save you.

While the U.K. study showed that diet soda drinkers didn’t seem to have the same high-blood pressure problems experienced by their sugared-up counterparts, they did have higher BMI. They also had lower levels of physical activity. And other studies have suggested diet soda is bad for your kidneys.

The new study appears in the journal Hypertension.