Lowering Your Blood Pressure

Posts Tagged ‘High Cholesterol’

My mom and dad suffer from high blood pressure,high cholesterol. It run on both sides of the family,that along with diabetes and heart disease. My mom started taking blood pressure medication young,in her later 20’s. My dad suffered from a stroke due to high blood pressure. I am 22yrs old and do not want to suffer this especially while young. Are there any ways I can be proactive about not suffering from those conditions now and later on in life being that it is hereditary? Or do I not have a chance in preventing it?

My mom has essential high blood pressure sometimes reaching over the 200/160 mark. As her blood pressure has been high for a while she has an enlarged right ventricle which will and is leading to CHF. Her breathing is already heavy. Her doctor has given her Betaloc, Plendil, Inhibace, Dosan, Cartia a blood thinner, Lipex for high cholesterol and Quinine for night cramps. She’s in her early 70’s and she complains of head aches, extreme fatigue and loss of energy. She has increasing dark circles around her eyes as if she hasn’t slept in months with shortness of breath like she’s gasping for air. I would like her to try natural remedies because these synthetic drugs don’t appear to be doing much for her overall health. Can anyone advise some really good and effective natural remedies to treat both high blood pressure and CHF? I know Celery is good for lowering blood pressure.

It’s been 20 years since I completed the Ironman Triathlon. Now my Olympic dreams have given way to the nightmare of paying for my kids education. Still, I workout regularly, eat well and almost fit into the jeans I wore in the ’80s. So…
How Could I Possibly Have A Cholesterol Problem?
Since I’m your doctor, I’m a little embarrassed to reveal my cholesterol numbers. But if we’re going to beat it together-here they are:
•My total cholesterol is 213 (not terrible, since the goal for total cholesterol is below 200).
•My LDL (low density aka bad cholesterol) is 155. The ideal for bad cholesterol is below 130 (100 if you have heart problems). LDL, cholesterol’s evil step brother, got its bad reputation by filling your arteries with fat causing high blood pressure, heart attacks, strokes and dementia. The LDL may be the single most important number we measure.
•My HDL (good cholesterol) is 55. HDL should stay over 45 for men and 55 for women. The higher the better since HDLs remove the fatty plaques from your arteries and brings them to the liver for elimination
The ratio of total cholesterol to HDL is important to measure. It tells us the amount of fatty material floating around in comparison to the amount being removed. The ideal ratio is 3.5 or less. So if my HDL is 55, to have an ideal cholesterol to HDL ratio of 3.5, my total cholesterol has to be 192 or less (your HDL x 3.5 = the highest total cholesterol you can have and still be ideal.) Try it out…plug in your HDL, multiply it by 3.5 and see if your cholesterol is out of balance.
All Men May Be Created Equal, But All Fats Aren’t
The leading causes of death in the U.S. are heart attacks, cancer and strokes. These diseases all have one thing in common; they are all related to the type of fat we eat. Notice that I didn’t say the amount of fat. That’s not nearly as important (although obesity is!).
Some fats actually improve our health. They correct our cholesterol balance, prevent heart attacks, reduce the chance of stroke and prevent inflammatory diseases such as Rheumatoid Arthritis.
You’ll spot the good fats. They’re liquid at room temperature and consist of:
•Monounsaturated Oils like olive oil, canola oil, oils derived from nuts and avocados.
•Polyunsaturated Oils like corn, soybean, and safflower oils and fish.
Some Fats Aren’t So Good. They’re solid in room temperature and are called:
•Saturated Fats. They’re found in whole milk, red meat, chicken skin, butter, cheese, chocolate and even coconuts. Basically, milk products and meat contain saturated fats. They raise both good and bad cholesterols, but hurt the proper cholesterol/HDL ratio.
Some of us have to be more careful than others since 75% of our cholesterol is manufactured by the liver. In other words, if you’ve got the bad cholesterol genes and your liver continually pumps out cholesterol, you need to act on this newsletter. Others can just pass it on to those who aren’t so blessed.
The Most Evil Fat of All is:
•Man made and prematurely ages and kills thousands of people every year.
•Not safe in any amount to anyone (Institute of Medicine).
•Responsible for Significantly Raising our Bad Cholesterol While Lowering Our Good Cholesterol.
•So unhealthy that even bacteria and mold won’t grow on it.
They are called Trans Fats
These are fake, man made fats. They started as real oils but were heated then cooled until they became solid. This process is called hydrogenation (because it adds hydrogen). You know who they are; they’re the fried foods, fast foods, commercial packaged baked goods, margarine, vegetable shortening and all products that say “hydrogenated or partially hydrogenated” in the ingredients.
You’ll see them all over packaged foods because they never die or go bad. They nearly last forever, since mold and bacteria won’t even grow on them. Nothing will!
In fact, The Nurses’ Health Study found when they replaced only 30 calories of carbohydrates with 30 calories of trans fats the risk of heart disease nearly doubled. When they replaced 80 calories of carbohydrates with 80 calories of either polyunsaturated or monounsaturated fats (the good fats), your chance of heart disease dropped by 30 to 40 percent. THAT’S A BIG HEALTH GAIN WITH LESS THAN 100 CALORIES OF DIET CHANGE!
Let’s put it another way…
By replacing that glob of margarine with olive oil, you’ll lower your chance of heart disease by one-third.
Is it worth it?
This is so important that in January 2006, a law requiring all food packaging to state whether it contains trans fats goes into effect.
To summarize, fats can be either liquid or solid at room temperature. Always choose liquids, they are the good fats. Fats that are solid at room temperature should be avoided. When cooking with oil, stir fry…don’t deep fry.
If you need to buy foods with trans fats, make sure they are listed as low as possible on the ingredient list. The higher on the list, the more in the food.
Is There Anything I Can Take, Naturally, To Balance My Cholesterol?
There appears to be three or four effective products worthy of a try, such as:
Garlic: While there is disagreement in the literature, the garlic that hasn’t had its odor removed (wild garlic) may lower your total cholesterol, bad cholesterol and triglycerides (circulating blood fat) about 10%.
Fish Oil: An abundant quantity of research seems to conclude that 1-2 grams of a fish oil supplement per day reduces your chance of a heart attack and stroke by preventing dangerous, irregular heart rhythms, thinning the blood, lowering triglycerides and preventing inflammation. In fact, one large trial found that by taking just 1 gram per day of fish oil over a 3.5 year period reduced the risk of dying from heart disease by 25 percent in those who already survived one heart attack. While it significantly lowered triglycerides, it seemed to slightly raise bad cholesterol.
Since women’s hearts are especially sensitive to high triglycerides. Those whose levels are high may benefit from taking 4 g/day of fish oil. Adding apple pectin (a type of fiber) to the fish oil seems to increase its triglyceride lowering ability even further. Flax seed oil, also an Omega 3 fatty acid (like fish oil), doesn’t seem to lower triglyceride levels.
So make sure it’s fish oil not just Omega 3 Fatty Acids.
Niacin: (Nicotinic acid) Lowers bad and total cholesterol and raises good cholesterol. It also can lower triglycerides. Unfortunately the dose needed for treatment is about 100 times more than the Recommended Daily Allowance and can potentially be toxic, especially to your liver. It should be considered a medication and taken only under your doctor’s directions if the other natural alternatives weren’t effective or appropriate.
Plant Sterols and Stanols: These plant products are added to some margarines and prevent the absorption of cholesterol in our intestines. In daily use, it has consistently lowered bad cholesterol about 10%.3,7 So far it does not appear to have long term negative effects. Life long use is predicted to result in a 20% decrease in coronary events.
But, The Best Is Saved For Last
Policosanol: A sugar cane derivative that lowers total cholesterol by 16% to 21%, bad cholesterol by 21% to 29% and raises good cholesterol by 8% to 15%. Although it’s triglyceride lowering effects have not been consistent, other cardiac benefits such as the prevention of clots and the dangerous oxidation of bad cholesterol have been demonstrated. Three year follow-ups have not shown negative side effects. 10-20 mg/day seems to be just as beneficial as higher doses.
Standard pharmaceutical treatments today include Statin Drugs, such as:
• Mevacor
• Zocor and
• Pravachol
They work by interfering with the liver’s ability to produce cholesterol and increasing its ability to remove cholesterol from the blood. Although statins can lower LDL cholesterol by as much as 60 percent, they can also damage the liver and, in rare incidences, cause a serious or deadly illness.
But, there’s good news. The chances of dying from the three leading causes of death (coronary vascular, cancer and strokes) are largely under your control.
Don’t Tell Me These Three Steps Are Too Hard…
1. Test your cholesterol (good, bad and total) and triglycerides
2. Watch the type of fats you eat.
o Eat fats that are oils at room temperature
o Moderately limit meat and dairy fats
o Severely limit margarine, fried foods and packaged food with the word “hydrogenated” in the ingredients.
3. If your cholesterol or triglycerides are elevated or out of balance, talk to us about whether you are a candidate for natural treatments. They can be very effective and may prevent the need for medications. Sometimes medications are necessary but the supplements may allow you to take a lower dose.

Cholesterol is quite easily the top of the list of killers among the human race in the world today. An excess of cholesterol can produce extremely fatal cardiovascular conditions such as atherosclerosis, heart aches, heart attacks, high blood pressure, etc. If a person has begun accumulating cholesterol in his or her arteries, then it might well be a way of inviting death.

A common misconception is that all kinds of fats can cause cholesterol buildup. But this is very far from the truth. In fact, only saturated fats and trans-fatty acids are responsible in building up cholesterol in the arteries. Whereas, cholesterol obtained from the monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fatty acids such as from nuts and cool water fishes are useful to the body, and they can bring the level of the harmful cholesterol down.

Even if the cholesterol has built up in the body, it can be certainly brought down using proper herbal techniques, as described in Ayurveda. This article is written with the purpose of enlightening you with some of the most potential remedies that Ayurveda describes for treating cholesterol and also some simple home remedies which also achieve the same task.Treatment with Simple Home RemediesRemedy 1

You cannot even dream of reducing cholesterol without first making a determination to stick to a particular regimen. If your cholesterol levels are high, then you must immediately and strictly obey the following guidelines:-

§ Stop the consumption of all fattening foods, which contain saturated and trans-fatty acids. These include all the hydrogenated oils, creams and chocolates.

§ Increase the consumption of fish such as salmon, sardines and mackerel and nuts. Always insist on one bitter dish per meal. It could be fenugreek, bitter gourd or bitter drumstick.

§ If you are overweight, enroll in a weight loss program. Keep yourself active and exercise often, according to the capacity of your body.

§ If you are an alcoholic, stop! If you are a smoker, desist! Alcoholism and smoking are lethal in people with high cholesterol.Remedy 2

Oranges are very beneficial to eliminate cholesterol because of their high vitamin C content. Sticking to a diet of only orange juice for a day is really beneficial. Remedy 3

Watermelon is very beneficial in treating high blood pressure that has been caused due to excessive cholesterol levels. Cut a whole watermelon and rub rock salt and black pepper on its slices. Then extract the juice of this watermelon and drink it. Within three or four days, the levels of the cholesterol will go down and the high blood pressure will also become normal.Remedy 4

Crush some coriander and then put it in a cup of water. Warm it so that the juices of the coriander exude out into the water properly. Then cool it and drink this coriander water. Doing this everyday for about a month will bring the cholesterol levels back to normal.Remedy 5

Every morning when you wake up, eat two to three cloves of garlic. If you cannot bear the sulfurous taste of the garlic, then you can roast them in a little amount of castor oil. Eat these cloves by biting them and chewing upon them fast. Eat them on an empty stomach each day. This seems to be a very simple thing to do (apart from the pungent taste of the garlic cloves, of course!) but it is proven even by western scientists to have amazing effects in the treatment of cholesterol.Remedy 6

Every night before retiring, have a cup of warm water with five grams of Triphala choorna in it. Triphala contains the three great herbs – amalaki (Emblica officinalis), bibhitaki (Terminalia belerica) and haritaki (Terminalia chebula). All these three have been individually proved to have powers of dissolving serum cholesterol. Amalaki is very rich in vitamin C, which is the best known nutrient for the natural dissolution of cholesterol in the blood.Remedy 7

Mix equal proportions of Bishop’s weed seeds, cumin seeds and sugar. Grind them to a fine powder in a mixer grinder. Take one teaspoonful of this powder twice a day with water. This is a safe remedy even for pregnant women, and it shows good results in them.Remedy 8

Put a single clove of garlic in one glass of milk. Bring it to a boil. Drink this garlic milk when it is still a little warm. Drinking this continuously for a week will surely bring the level of the cholesterol down.Remedy 9

Take two teaspoons of honey and mix one teaspoon of lemon juice in it. Drinking this juice twice a day helps to dissolve the cholesterol from the arteries.Treatment with Special Ayurvedic Methods

Arjuna is the Ayurvedic drug of choice for the elimination of cholesterol. The bark of the arjuna is prescribed to the patient in powder form, or in the form of its various decoctions with other herbs. The general dosage is one gram of powder four times a day. The vehicle to take this drug is either ghee, milk or honey; depending on which dosha is predominant in the body of the person. Ayurvedic doctors may also prescribe Arjunarishta, which is a preparation of arjuna mixed in special butters or ghee.

Fast food is considered a staple in many American diets today. Prepackaged items at the grocery store may be easy to prepare, but the labels suggest unhealthy levels of fat and calories. Sodium content is also a major concern. Many people fail to eat well-balanced meals. In a hurry, many people simply forage in the refrigerator for a quick bite, or grab something on the go.
Forget about trying to eat the recommended daily allowance from all the food groups. Therefore, it should be no surprise cholesterol levels are rising accordingly. When a doctor mentions the need to lower cholesterol levels, a patient will generally react in one of three different ways. He/she will adopt a “tomorrow” attitude, decide to die happy, or take personal responsibility toward making the appropriate changes.
Probably the most common reaction to high cholesterol is unbelief as to the serious repercussions. Many individuals believe the problem is no big deal. Tending to put off until tomorrow what should be dealt with today, could lead to disaster. For example, a 57-year-old man’s cholesterol levels are too high. However, he has lost a few extra pounds. Also, he walks a lot and gets plenty of exercise. In fact, he probably looks and feels better than he has in past years. Surely his cholesterol numbers will go down, and he will not have to worry about them anymore. Unfortunately, the man made a fatal error in judgment; he will never see 58.
Uneducated regarding the increased potential for life-threatening heart disease, individuals also tend to take a prescription and resume eating ice cream for dessert, fast food, and other high fat meals. Unfortunately, medicine is not a cure all. Unless individuals make the conscience choice to implement permanent changes in lifestyle, and begin making healthier choices, the medicine will not work as intended. Therefore, patients are still susceptible to cardiovascular disease.
People fail to realize high cholesterol and high blood pressure both contribute to heart attacks and strokes. Although the word is out regarding high blood pressure, motivating individuals to take the problem seriously, high cholesterol has not yet been elevated to the same level of concern. Health professionals are attempting to change patients’ perceptions regarding fatty deposits blocking blood flow.
Sadly, many people are too lazy, or unwilling to change, even when life hangs in the balance. Self-denial is not in their vocabulary. Rather than taking the health problem seriously and facing the truth, individuals choose to believe debilitating/deadly heart attacks and strokes will happen to the other guy. Personally, he/she will dodge the proverbial bullet.
However, fatalism is by far the worst attitude possible, when confronted with the serious health issues associated with high cholesterol. Nevertheless, a surprising number of people are essentially playing Russian roulette with life. Sadly, Americans are a fat society, literally and figuratively. From a young age, individuals are taught to look after number one, to go after wants, and not to let anything/anyone stand in the way. Unfortunately, the same skewed philosophy often translates into poor health habits.
For example, most people know to snack on fruits and vegetables, instead of a piece of chocolate cake. However, the cake tastes so much better, and the excuses start to fly. Dying prematurely seems like a remote possibility, and surely one piece of cake will not make the matter worse. Besides, if death comes early, at least the person will not have to sacrifice, and he/she will die happy. How sad!
By far, the best attitude is the responsible approach. Wise individuals will take the necessary steps to reduce cholesterol levels. Unless cholesterol levels are dangerously high, requiring immediate attention, doctors will suggest lifestyle changes in diet, exercise, and stressors. Proactive people will embrace a healthier lifestyle by eating more fruits, vegetables, and other high fiber foods. In addition, a regular exercise routine becomes a permanent part of every day activities. While getting buff at the local gym may not be a personal choice, a daily walk is a good start to getting the cardiovascular system in good shape.
However, if the patient responsibly complies, and cholesterol levels are still high, a doctor may then suggest medication. However, a responsible person understands the medicine only aids the necessary changes. Medication is not a ticket to observe unhealthy habits. Controlling high cholesterol is an individual choice.
In summary, more Americans are being diagnosed with high cholesterol. Like hypertension, an elevated cholesterol level can become a silent killer. However, patients often choose to put treatment off until tomorrow, or live in a perpetual state of denial, until cardiovascular disease rules the day. Thankfully, wise people know controlling high cholesterol is a personal choice. Enlightened, a lifestyle change is a small price to pay for the opportunity to live a long and healthy life.

Throughout the world today thousands of people are dying of high cholesterol which is the leading cause of heart disease and high blood pressure. What then exactly is Cholesterol and how does it affect you?

Cholesterol is fatty molecule which is produced by your system and then dispersed throughout your body.

All Cholesterol is not bad and often you hear people talk about good cholesterol and bad cholesterol. But why do you need to lower your cholesterol? When you’re Cholesterol levels get too high the fatty substance blocks the arteries and your blood pressure raises. This in return causes heart disease and will eventually lead to a premature death.

In order to live a healthier life, you need to lower your Cholesterol levels. First of all you need to check with your medical practitioner, by means of a cholesterol blood test, to see what the levels are. Once you have checked your cholesterol levels and confirmed that they are too high, you need to take some actions towards lowering your cholesterol levels. Following these steps as a preventative measure is also a good idea.

There are a few ways of doing it and the first and foremost way of doing this is by starting with a good low cholesterol diet. Although you can inherit cholesterol, it is mostly bad eating habits which cause high cholesterol.

You need to choose foods which are low in unsaturated fats. There are many foods which are low in unsaturated fats and will help you to lower your cholesterol. Fruit, Vegetables and fish are good and healthy food types which will help you to lower your cholesterol fast.

Food types which you need too avoid, or at least limit, when you want to lower your cholesterol are red meat, milk, cheese and other dairy products. Dairy products are very high in Cholesterol.

Dieting is a means of lowering your cholesterol, but there are also other factors to consider like exercise. A good exercise program is a great way to reduce the fat in your body.

I have changed my own lifestyle to a low fat lifestyle and I can still remember that when I first decided to change my lifestyle, I did not necessarily exercised much more at first, but I just became more active. I would go for long walks along the beach, and climbed up a mountain now and then. I started to walk the five blocks down to the post office instead of taking the car.

In a period of 5 months I have lost 12 kilograms, which is about 26 pounds, and I have never picked it up again. I must admit it feels great to not have to carry all that weight around every day.

The point that I want to make is that if you want to lower your cholesterol, you do not need to go through some strenuous exercise program. Just take a look around yourself and find the small things that you can do.

Lowering your Cholesterol is in your own best interest and in the interest of your loved ones. Make a wise decision today. Decide to lower your cholesterol levels.