By keeping your blood pressure in check, you can help prevent a stroke. Here are five drug-free ways to bring the numbers down.
By Elizabeth Barker
Eat Omega-3s
"Omega-3s lower your levels of blood fats and make your blood less viscous, so your heart doesn't have to work as hard," explains Ginger Nash, N.D., a naturopathic physician in Connecticut. Nash recommends eating flaxseed or nuts every day or getting three servings of omega-3-rich fish like salmon each week. If you don't get enough of these foods, consider supplementing your diet with 1,200 to 1,500 milligrams of fish oil daily, Nash says.
Get a Chiropractic Adjustment
A onetime adjustment of the Atlas vertebra (located at the base of the skull) lowers blood pressure as effectively as taking two blood pressure drugs at once, suggests a recent University of Chicago Medical Center study of 50 people. Although researchers didn't determine how the adjustment reduced blood pressure, they found that the decrease was still in effect eight weeks after treatment.
Use Supplements
Taking 60 mg per day of Coenzyme Q10-a naturally occurring compound often deficient in people with hypertension-may lower blood pressure by helping the heart contract more effectively, according to Nash. Robert E. Kowalski, author of The Blood Pressure Cure (Wiley, 2007), also recommends the supplements Lyc-O-Mato (15 mg daily), a tomato extract that provides lycopene and other antioxidants that may lower blood pressure; pycnogenol (200 mg daily), an extract of pine bark that promotes artery health; Mega- Natural-BP, a grapeseed extract that helps keep cholesterol from building up in the arteries; and EP Sustained-Release L-Arginine, an amino acid that can improve blood flow.
Take Magnesium, Calcium & Potassium
These electrolytes help nourish the heart muscle and regulate blood pressure. Kowalski suggests you get about 700 mg of magnesium, 1,200 mg of calcium, and 4,700 mg of potassium daily through your diet or in supplement form. And because too much sodium (another electrolyte) can raise your blood pressure, eat salty foods in moderation.
Do Breathing Exercises
Two to three minutes of deep breathing several times a day can help bring down blood pressure, according to Kowalski. He recommends a gadget called RESPeRATE (resperate.com) that teaches slow, paced breathing by chiming when you should inhale and exhale.
Showing posts with label blood pressure. Show all posts
Showing posts with label blood pressure. Show all posts
Monday, April 13, 2009
Friday, October 03, 2008
Doctors not prescribing exercise for blood pressure
NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - When doctors tell patients with high blood pressure to get some exercise, most of them listen -- yet too few doctors are doing so, a new study suggests.
Using data from a government health survey, researchers found that only one-third of U.S. adults with high blood pressure said their doctors had counseled them on getting regular exercise.
But of those who did get such advice, 71 percent followed it -- and had lower blood pressure than their counterparts who remained inactive, the investigators report in the journal Ethnicity & Disease.
"The blood pressure reduction was ... unexpected, as this was not a trial to determine whether exercise would reduce blood pressure," lead researcher Dr. Josiah Halm, of the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine, said in a statement.
Doctors, he said, should be encouraging exercise as a way to manage high blood pressure, even if they think they do not have time for such a conversation.
"Clinicians will always decry not having enough time to counsel, but a method of using a prescription pad with exercise recommendations as suggested in the study will help solve this quandary," Halm said.
The findings are based on a federal health survey that included 4,686 U.S. adults with high blood pressure. Of these participants, 33 percent said their doctor had told them to exercise regularly to help lower their blood pressure.
Among people who'd received this advice, Halm's team found, 71 percent said they'd heeded it -- and their blood pressure was several points lower, on average, than men and women who had not taken up exercise.
This does not prove that exercise was responsible for the lower blood pressure. However, the researchers point out, other studies have found that exercise does cut elevated blood pressure, even in the absence of weight loss.
Halm and his colleagues suggest that doctors think about exercise as a prescription, and actually write down on a prescription pad the type, intensity and duration of exercise each patient should try.
SOURCE: Ethnicity & Disease, Summer 2008.
Using data from a government health survey, researchers found that only one-third of U.S. adults with high blood pressure said their doctors had counseled them on getting regular exercise.
But of those who did get such advice, 71 percent followed it -- and had lower blood pressure than their counterparts who remained inactive, the investigators report in the journal Ethnicity & Disease.
"The blood pressure reduction was ... unexpected, as this was not a trial to determine whether exercise would reduce blood pressure," lead researcher Dr. Josiah Halm, of the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine, said in a statement.
Doctors, he said, should be encouraging exercise as a way to manage high blood pressure, even if they think they do not have time for such a conversation.
"Clinicians will always decry not having enough time to counsel, but a method of using a prescription pad with exercise recommendations as suggested in the study will help solve this quandary," Halm said.
The findings are based on a federal health survey that included 4,686 U.S. adults with high blood pressure. Of these participants, 33 percent said their doctor had told them to exercise regularly to help lower their blood pressure.
Among people who'd received this advice, Halm's team found, 71 percent said they'd heeded it -- and their blood pressure was several points lower, on average, than men and women who had not taken up exercise.
This does not prove that exercise was responsible for the lower blood pressure. However, the researchers point out, other studies have found that exercise does cut elevated blood pressure, even in the absence of weight loss.
Halm and his colleagues suggest that doctors think about exercise as a prescription, and actually write down on a prescription pad the type, intensity and duration of exercise each patient should try.
SOURCE: Ethnicity & Disease, Summer 2008.
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