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March 15, 2010
Truth About Blood Pressure
Hi ,
In conversations with several patients recently it has come to my attention that most people do not really understand the nature of hypertension (high blood pressure). We have all heard that blood pressure is the "Silent Killer" and just sort of let our automatic brain file that as "high blood pressure = bad, avoid high blood pressure" without ever engaging our higher brain to ask why is our blood pressure high. If you do happen to ask what is up, the stock answer is you could stroke out or burst a blood vessel. While that could be a possible end point scenario and needs to be protected against, it misses the real why question - why does the blood pressure get high in the first place?
High blood pressure is a symptom that something else is going wrong in the body. The body is too intelligent to create a condition without good cause. Unfortunately in today's rush-rush medicine no one looks for causes anymore. All we get is a pill and a push out the door. Just taking a pill for high blood pressure is like taking the battery out of the screaming fire alarm and assuming there is now no longer a problem. Modern medicine is filled with the "no alarm = no problem" mindset. Most medicines are drugs that suppress normal functions of the body... they take the batteries out of our internal fire alarms.
High blood pressure is your body trying to compensate for some other problem in your body. Yes, the compensation could compromise other systems - compromises usually do. But the body has priorities based on millions of years of trial and error to decide what is most important for survival in the now moment. The possibility of a stroke down the road is not as important as getting blood flow to tissues that need it right now. That is the basic reason we have blood pressure. It is just the product of how hard the heart has to work to get blood to all the tissues that need it. If the pressure goes up, it usually means the body is having trouble getting blood to all the places that need it.
95% of hypertension is a type called essential hypertension, which we are told essentially means they do not know what causes it. While your practicing MD may not know the cause (since no drug rep has told them the cause as part of the sales pitch as to why all his patients need their new blood pressure drug), zillions of dollars in research has been finding the causes for many years. The problem is, the answers don't fit the "one problem - one solution" framework drug companies like to work within. At my latest count at least 23 different causes acting either together or alone produce high blood pressure. Let's make a list - how many do you have?
1. High Electrolyte levels in the blood increasing oxidative damage to the blood vessels.
2. Excess insulin due to insulin resistance causing increased sodium levels and increased vascular resistance.
3. Low nitric oxide levels causing blood vessel constriction.
4. Dehydration causing increased angiotensin ll hormone levels.
5. Low Vitamin C and bioflavinoid levels causing blood vessel dysfunction.
6. Sympathetic Nervous System stress causing blood vessel constriction.
7. High Adrenaline levels causing blood vessel constriction and damage.
8. High Oxidative stress causing atherosclerosis and glutathione depletion.
9. Low digestive enzymes producing low Magnesium, Potassium, and Calcium levels (necessary for controlling blood pressure).
10. Low Hydrochloric acid levels in the stomach producing low Magnesium, Potassium, and Calcium levels (necessary for controlling blood pressure).
11. Low Magnesium and Potassium causing excess sympathetic nervous discharge and vasoconstriction.
12. Malabsorption causing inflammatory cytokines that damage blood vessel walls.
13. Leaky gut causing absorption of large proteins and lectins that cause the blood to clump together producing thick blood sludge (harder for the heart to push through the vessels).
14. Low exercise producing tight closed blood vessels and poor blood flow to peripheral tissues.
15. Poor diet with just not enough magnesium, potassium, and calcium and too many calories.
16. Toxic heavy metals (like cadmium, aluminum, lead, and mercury) that damage blood vessel walls and brain control centers.
17. Brain inflammation and degeneration unbalancing the autonomic control messages to the blood vessels and heart.
18. Xanthene oxidase formed when milk is homogenized that burns artery walls producing atherosclerosis.
19. Hormone imbalances due to liver toxicity preventing the liver from breaking down the excess hormones.
20. Gluten sensitivity creates autoimmune inflammation that drives up blood pressure.
21. Altered epigenetic gene expression due to unresolved shocks and traumas to the person's psyche.
22. Lung damage from smoking or industrial exposure producing back pressure on the pulmonary arteries.
23. Kidney damage due to over the counter pain drug usage or disease.
With such a long list you can see why doctors are unwilling to try to figure out the real cause of your hypertension. Most of these (causes 1 through 15) we can test for with a simple urinalysis and screening in our office. Urinalysis Screening. As a special opportunity for my newsletter readers, I will discount the metabolic panel to only $69 from its regular $129 from now to the end of the month of April. If you have high blood pressure or are concerned about developing it then these tests are a must. Hypertension is the alarm telling you something is amiss in one or more of these systems.
Although there are simple lifestyle changes and herbal remedies for most of these causes, there is no one pill that will magically "cure" you. Unfortunately high blood pressure is the result of poor lifestyle choices you have made that do not work for your particular body. You can't keep doing what you have always done and expect to change your high blood pressure. The "Silent killer" is a loud warning to either change your ways or die. It is that simple. Drugs that suppress the high blood pressure response will buy you a little more time, but the underlying progressive process continues until it takes you down.
Choose now to reverse the physical degeneration of your blood vessels that produces blood pressure problems. Embrace a new way of living that aligns with the natural functioning of your body and respects its needs for health. Our modern lifestyle is killing us - time for a better choice.
Good Journey,
David
Heartflow Guest Article:
Why We Take Things Personally
by Ellen Flowers
Life reflects back to us what we believe...
We experience our life, our actions and feeling through filters. These filters are the beliefs we acquire through our associations and experiences early in life. These beliefs or filters are "our truth" and we use our truth to define and make sense out of life, as it is presented to us. Our truth creates our identity and shapes our relationships.
Example:
The circumstances of my earlier years led me to believe that I was "unlikable." Unlikable became my truth and my identity. I felt alone and separate. The harder I tried to connect with people, the worse my life became. I had no idea that I was creating the separation by my belief.
Now, lets step back and see what was really going on...
I was in desperate need of connection to people. Their need to connect to me was nowhere near as strong as my need to connect to them. Having only my strength of need to compare to, I assumed they must "not like me" since they did not need to connect to me. I could only feel my needs and had to interpret life from my viewpoint.
I needed attention to survive. That need became the driving force behind the perception, that "how people behaved or treated me, was about me." In other words, I took everything people said or did personally. I believed that "it must be about me because they were saying it to me."
With my filters in place, I would take to heart all of the negative energy or emotion that someone presented, but left out all the positive or supportive energy they expressed. This created, a perceived, constant and consistent feedback of "I am unlikable," but it also gave me the illusion that I was the center of their actions. I was the center of their attention.
We all need attention and connection and will take negative attention rather than no attention. So I was using my belief in the negative attention to survive. The truth is that people are who they are and their expression is about their relationship to the world and their tone and behavior has nothing to do with us. "Taking it personally" serves our survival until we learn new skills to meet our attention needs.
Ellen Flowers 2010 (916) 966-4714
Ellen is giving complimentary
Heart Rate Variability EKG Examinations
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Trim Challenge
I'm well into my liver flush now...but I am approaching it very differently this time. I have been doing some research on intermittent fasting and have decided to try this with my green fast this time.
What does this mean? It means I do the very low calorie thing every other day instead of every day and just extend the length of the green fast to 4 weeks instead of only two. This obviously is easier to do but it has other more important benefits.
Intermittent fasting keeps your body's metabolism up to normal. This is important if we want to clear the system in as short a time as possible. Normally when you fast or do very low calories your body will slow down your metabolism to try to match your food intake. It shuts down making and using energy from storage and tells you to just go curl up somewhere until food comes around again.
The lack of energy is a nuisance, but more importantly we want the body to be mobilizing stored fat energy because that is where the toxins have been stored that we are trying to neutralize and flush out. If our fat stores are not accessed fully to produce energy then not as many of the toxins will be released.
So what does this look like? On fast days I have 400 - 600 calories of a green vegetable soup and high fiber flax and chia seed "bread". Every other day I add more protein and fat to up the calories to 1500 to 1800. I still stay very low carb to stay in the ketosis "fasting" state, but I fool my body into thinking I am eating a normal amount of calories. The adventure continues.
David
Ouestions - if you have questions of a health or growth nature we could discuss in this newsletter, or if you have comments or ideas about a future newsletter focus please email me at:
david@fairoakshealth.com
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