Hypertension, or high blood pressure, will affect about 1 in 3 adults in the U.S., making it one of the most common medical diagonoses. A doctor doesn’t have to get very far in his or her practice to encounter high blood pressure.
High blood pressure was first recognized by health practitioners around 3,000 years ago, though the condition was called “hard pulse disease” at the time. Many old writings offer a variety of approaches to try to control the disorder.
Like most diseases, scientific breakthroughs in all fields of study helped doctors understand the body better and gave us a much better understanding of hypertension and its consequences.
The most popular approach to blood pressure control remains drug therapy. This would just fine and dandy if weren’t for the long list of negative effects many of which are worse than the high blood pressure itself. We have seen a wide variety of new attempts by the pharmaceutical industry to help control blood pressure. Other disciplines have worked on blood pressure with varied treatments, all with some level of success. The most surprising to us today is the attempt at using surgery to control blood pressure.
One novel way to approach high blood pressure is with dietary self-diagnosis and self- treatment. Thanks to economical and accurate home blood pressure monitors, a person can keep tabs on their own condition without an appointment and trip to the doctor’s office and of course, with no co-pay.
First I should say that not every person with a food sensitivity is going to have a pulse or blood pressure reaction. The body’s responses to food sensitivities are complex. We are looking for those particular reactions that affect the central nervous system in such a way that heart rate and/or blood pressure increase as a sign of stress.
In some cases, a pulse test can a better indicator than blood pressure, and vice versa. You will have to keep track of both to see what works best for you for that particular food. Pulse tests have been used for decades to help determine which foods might cause a negative reaction. To understand that, do an internet search. You will find lots of links at your disposal to explain that. In like manner, however, you can now use your home blood pressure monitor to get information about your body.
You can approach blood pressure changes from two different points of view. The first is to use antibody or other tests to find out what you are reacting to, then eliminate that food and see what happens to your blood pressure over time. A good example of this is gluten. Some studies have indicated that gluten sensitive people with hypertension tend to normalize their blood pressure within about six months. We recommend Cyrex, Enterolab and/or Alcat testing to help you figure out which foods you should start testing. These tests use different ways of testing so each will give a little different information.
Another approach is to go through foods one at a time to see what the reaction is over the next several hours. For example, you might avoid eggs for a few days and then have eggs for breakfast and the monitor your blood pressure (and pulse while you are at it) periodically over the next several hours. As soon as you see a significant increase, you have your answer. If your baseline blood pressure is 130/86, for example and the next time you check it after the egg breakfast it is 144/92, your body has told you that the stress level has increased since the last reading. In this case, eggs could be contributing to your hypertension (among other things).
If you are one of those people who deals with hypertension, I encourage you to take a new look at your diet. Your blood pressure monitor is no longer just telling you something is wrong, but can now help you determine causes and help you track your health progress.
While you are sorting this out, you might find that some supplements are helpful at controlling the stress that manifests as high blood pressure. Thorne Perfusia has been used successfully by many. Of course you want to make sure you are keeping your stress at a minimum and managing you cortisol levels. BetterGenix AdrenalGenix can be helpful for that.
As much as we like using supplements to move your health picture in the right direction, we encourage you to use your pulse and blood pressure as diagnostic tools to find offending agents so you can be your best.
