Alpha Nutrition Health Education
Cardiovascular Disease Hypertension
Definition of Hypertension
A normal adult blood pressure is below 120/80. High blood pressure has been defined as over 140/90. The goal of hypertension treatment is to reduce blood pressure to approximate a normal reading of 120/80. Blood pressure varies with activities and time of day. "Normal" values represent resting, relaxed readings averaged over a period of time. An athlete in top condition may have a blood pressure of 200/120 during peak exertion and a pressure of 90/60 in the morning before getting out of bed. Normal systolic pressure tends to increase with age; an old adage suggested that if the systolic pressure was less than 100 plus your age, everything was OK. New evidence suggests that lower systolic pressures are healthier but the criteria for blood pressure treatment over age 70 should permit systolic readings below 170 without treatment. luxury apartments nyc
Terms
Systolic Pressure is the first, higher reading - a transient pressure peak when the heart is contracting and forcing blood through the arterial system.
Diastolic pressure is the second lower reading - the sustaining pressure in the arterial system when the heart is filling with blood.
Peripheral resistance; the arterial system is a branching tree-like structure. The smaller branches can contract to increase the resistance to flow, thus increasing blood pressure. To reduce pressure, you dilate the smaller arteries, increasing the flow rate.
Cardiac Work: the heart is a muscular pump the pushes blood through the arterial tree against peripheral resistance. As the resistance increased, the blood pressure increases and cardiac work increases. If high blood pressure is persistent, the heart may enlarge to accommodate the extra work - at some point the work required may exceed the heart muscle's endurance and heart failure occurs.
Stephen Jon Gislason MD
High Blood Pressure is one expression of a disease-complex caused by the wrong diet and unhealthy lifestyle. For years, excessive sodium salt was associated with hypertension and low sodium diets were recommended to all sufferers. As it turned out, only some people with high blood pressure are sodium sensitive. According to the Canadian Coalition for High Blood Pressure Prevention and Control, non-drug strategies should be the priority for hypertension control. Smoking cessation, low fat diet, weight loss, exercise, reduced alcoholic beverage consumption and increased potassium, calcium and magnesium intake with decreased sodium are the important steps to avoid the problem of high blood pressure. A vegetarian diet is favorable for anyone with high blood pressure and other manifestations of cardiovascular disease.
Aging men and women are having more heart attacks and strokes. Cardiovascular deaths are rising for the first time since 1980. In the USA alone 1.5 million people have heart attacks every year at a cost of $51.6 billion (1993 data). The American Heart Association's Heart & Stroke Facts reports cardiovascular diseases killed 954,138 in the US in 1993. Stroke deaths rose to 150,000. And the number of people treated in the hospital for cardiovascular diseases rose to 5.7 million. In the US, 50 million people are thought to have have high blood pressure; about half are receiving treatment and half of the treated are successful at reducing their blood pressure to below 140/90. This leaves about 37 million people in the US with persisting hypertension. The incidence of high blood pressure rises with age; more common in men under 50, but more common in women over age 65. Over age 70, the incidence approaches 2/3s of the population. In Canada 57% of the estimated 4 million people with hypertension are treated by a physician but the overall success of this effort is in doubt.
Essential Hypertension
Hypertension is divided into two groups - primary or essential hypertension and secondary to a specific disease. Diseases of the kidney and blocked kidney arteries, for example, can produce high blood pressure as a secondary effect. No specific cause is found in 90% of hypertensives.
One explanation is that the population at risk is becoming more sedentary with an increase in obesity. Their food supply is clearly suspect and it is not just the fat in the diet. These arterial problems with different and complex origins link to the diets and lifestyle popular in Europe and North America and occur less often among physically active, vegetable-eating populations who seldom eat dairy products, meat, and other high-protein-fat foods.
Measuring Blood Pressure
You would think that measuring and treating blood pressure in a doctors office would be a perfected science after several decades of well-focused concern, scientific inquiry and mass public relations. The bad news is that medical progress has created more uncertainty about blood pressure measurements and medical practice has not perfected the art or science of managing blood pressure. Robert Davis writing about high blood pressure in the USA today (July 27 1998; 4D) stated "During quick exams by doctors and their busy office staffs, a delicate art of medicine is being rushed and often flubbed with potentially dangerous consequences, experts say....the physician is rushed now. If they don't see 25-35 patients in a day they are unable to pay their expenses."
Four major concerns about BP diagnosis and treatment:
- BP readings may be inaccurate or biased
- white coat syndrome - higher BP readings are obtained in the doctor's office
- inadequate sample - many readings are required to obtain a meaningful average
- corrective action taken is inappropriate
Blood pressure is a dynamic feature of pumping blood. BP readings vary. BP tends to be lowest in the morning and highest in the late afternoon. BP will rise with exertion and may be very high briefly with vigorous exercise. Self monitoring of blood pressure makes sense for several reasons - you can learn more about how your pressure reacts to food, events, and time of day. You can average many readings to get a true estimate of BP. A few high readings in a physicians office may be an artifact and many readings at home will show a lower average.
The Solution -Diet Revision
The 50 million Americans and 4 million Canadians who have high blood pressure and arterial disease should seek the benefits of complete diet revision therapy! To improve the health of modern citizens and to reduce, at the same time, the increasing costs of health-care, self-responsibility for disease-prevention is required. Each person will have to alter disease-causing habits, change poor eating habits, stop smoking and drinking, and become more physically active.
We have no difficulty in recommending aggressive diet revision, vigorous enough to prevent vascular disasters. Imagine that you live in a little cottage by the sea, think quiet thoughts, walk everywhere, tend your organic vegetable garden, cultivate fruit trees (never sprayed) and go fishing once or twice per week. Now you have a perfect setting and a perfect diet for enduring good health.
Current recommendations for fat intake are shrinking progressively from 35% of total calories to 20%; for people with high risk of heart disease, fat intake should go below 10% of daily calories. Typical American diets contain as much as 37% fat, an extravagant surplus. A total of 15-25 grams of fat per day supplies our needs. The minimum requirements are 1-2% of total calories for adults and 3% for infants.
Sodium restraint is considered a primary strategy of reducing high blood pressure. Increased intake of calcium and potassium may lower high blood pressure and extra potassium may protect against stroke-associated death. North American diets tend to offer sodium levels 10 times higher than actual need (minimum of 1100 mg/day, adults). Average consumption of NaCl is 10-14.5 grams/day. The proper ratio of Sodium to Potassium probably favors potassium excess. Most diets have sodium disproportion with the ratio tending toward sodium excess of 3-10 Sodium to 1 Potassium. The foods in Phase 1 and 2 of the Alpha Nutrition Program automatically correct the sodium/potassium ratio and increase intake of magnesium. More on Minerals.
The Alpha Nutrition Program is designed to reduce cholesterol, total fat, saturated fats, and food allergy while increasing vegetable fiber-all desirable measures in the effort to prevent blood vessel diseases, heart attacks and strokes. Increased intake of potassium, magnesium and calcium is advocated with a reduction in sodium salt intake. Increased intake of six vitamins: folic acid, pyridoxine, B12, beta carotene, ascorbic acid (vitamin C) and vitamin E-are recommended. The program can be recommended, along with exercise and relaxation, as the most important defenses against cardiovascular disease.
Alpha Nutrition is desirable for people who are struggling with chronic symptoms that suggest they have food-related disease and also have some of the other risk factors for arterial disease. Clues to the pervasive effects of the wrong food supply include headaches, fatigue, digestive symptoms, arthritic symptoms, food cravings and compulsive eating or drinking. The presence of recurrent or persistent symptoms means that complete, comprehensive diet revision is required - not just salt and fat reduction.
Alpha Nutrition Health Education Series
More on Cardiovascular Disease
List of PublicationsThese discussions of arterial disease are continued in the Book of Arteries. You can order an eBook or printed text version separately or as part of a Nutritional Rescue Starter Pack
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