Natural Remedies For High Blood Pressure - Exposed

Need A Hypertension Natural Remedy?

High blood pressure is one of the most common medical issues facing Americans today. It's right up their with obeasity, diabetes, and heart disease. In fact, it is often related to these three diseases. Even though approx. 100 million people in the U.S. have hypertension, 30 million don't know it. This is why it is called "the silent killer". There are often no symptoms until a heart attack, stroke, or other medical emergency occur. Then it can be too late to treat it. So, the first thing to prevent such a problem, is to know where you whether you lie in the normal range of blood pressure. Blood pressure is read by two numbers, the systolic (top number), and the diastolic (bottom number). A normal reading is 120 over 80. Here is a chart that can better illustrate the safe and unsafe levels, in accordance with the national heart, lung, and blood institute:

Symptoms of high blood pressure:

This is one of the primary problems with hypertension, AKA high blood pressure. It really doesn't have any symptoms in the beginning. Even up through stage 2, you may not have many symptoms. However, sometimes there are symptoms in stage one, and more often in stage two, including dizzyness, random nose bleeds, and headaches.

Types of high blood pressure:

There are two types of high blood pressure. Primary hypertension, and secondary hypertension.

The one that concerns most people is primary hypertension. This is when the blood pressure itself is the concern, and it has no specific cause.

Secondary hypertension on the other hand has a specific cause. Usually a medication or drug is at fault, however kidney disease or an underlying hormonal disorder can cause this. Secondary hypertension is the easier one to treat, because you either discontinue the drug, treat the hormone disorder or the kidney disease, and the high blood pressure will subside.

Primary hypertension on the other hand is trickier to nail down to one specific cause. The good news is, most are controllable. The bad news is, some are not.

Here is a list of the most common contributing
factors to high blood pressure:

Excercise Level - People who do some form of aerobic exercise regularly usually have strong hearts and lower plaque levels in their blood. These two things help reduce blood pressure.

Weight - If a person has a large body mass, the heart has to work harder to push blood through the body. This puts extra strain on the heart, which shows up as high blood pressure.

Tobacco - The chemicals in cigarrettes and tobacco in general cause a hardening of artery and capillary walls. When the atery walls harden, they loose elasticity, and therefore pumping blood through them is harder to do.

Sodium / Potassium Ratio: If you take in a lot of salt, or don't take in enough potassium, you can have high blood pressure.

Alcohol Use: Regular consumption of alcohol over time will increase the risk of high blood pressure, and the related heart disease.

Stress: Stress seems to be the bodies yin to the exercises yang. For all the good exercise does the body, stress does it wrong. hypertension is no exception. In fact, this is a major contributing factor.

And here are the common UNpreventable factors:

Age: As we age, our bodies break down. The heart doesn't function quite as well, and arteries tend to break down a bit. Nothing we can do about this one

Genetics: High blood pressure tends to run in familys. If you parents or grandparents have (had) it...you have a higher chance of getting it too.

Natural Remedies For High Blood Pressure:

So, if you have slight or even moderate high blood pressure, you may be able to treat it simply by undergoing a few basic lifestyle changes, and using a natural remedy or two as well. This is an ideal situation, because you can lower your blood pressure WITHOUT the typical side effects of hypertension medication. Here are some herbs, supplements, and methods that are commonly used as natural remedies for high blood pressure:

Coenzyme Q10 (Co Q10 for short): Although HerbalRemediesThatWork.Com is not a website about jumping on the hype bandwagon, this supplement has some independent studies behind it with impressive results for people with hypertension.

One 12 week study was conducted with 83 people who had systolic hypertension. It was a double blind, placebo controlled test, so some got the Coenzyme Q10, and the rest got the placebo. They took a capsule twice a day for the duration of the study. At the end, the folks who had taken the Co Q10 had a blood pressure average decrease of 17.8 mm hg.

Another study out of the U.W.A. (University of Western Australia) tested Co Q10 on 74 people with type 2 diabetes. These people were randomly grouped and given either Co Q10, fenfibrate (a prescription drug), neither, or both the drug and the supplement. The results were promising. Not only did Co Q10 reduce HbA1C in the blood, which is a marker for long term blood sugar control, but it reduced both systolic and diastolic blood pressure.

These studies are promising, however, the benefit of Co Q10 on hypertension is less than that of other supplements and herbal remedies.

**Note: If you have experienced a heart attack or heart failure, Co Q10 has proven itself able to increase heart health more than it helps relieve blood pressure.

Side Effects: NO major side effects, however, there have been some minor side effects that are important to be aware of, including fatigue, restlessness, and insomnia.

Dosage: Between 30mg - 50mg is what most doctors recommend to get the necessaey amount into the bloodstream. Do not exceed an intake of 50 mg per day.

Folic Acid (B Complex Vitamin): Folic acid is a B vitamin that is found primarily in citrus fruits, leafy green vegetables, and lentils. These are ideal sources for folic acid, however, vitamins and fortified foods are also a possible source if organic sources are difficult to obtain.

It is believed to work by relaxing arteries, capillaries, and blood vessels in general. This helps ease blood flow. There have been numerous studies on Folic acid and the consensus from these studies is that Folic acid does reduce hypertension. One small study of 24 smokers found folic acid supplements taken for 4 weeks substantially reduced blood pressure in this high risk group of people.

But what about hypertension prevention?

Well, a new study published in the "Journal of the American Medical Association", or JAMA, looked at a total of 150,000 women in their 20's - 40's. Of those who received at least 1,000 micrograms of folic acid, they had a decreased occurance of high bood pressure by almost 50%!

So, it turns out folic acid not only reduces blood pressure, but can completely prevent its occurance.

Dosage: between 400 micrograms and 1000 micrograms per day.

Side Effects: Under normal amounts, no side effects have been observed. In very high dosages above 15,000 micrograms, extreme side effects including seizures, stomach problems, and skin irritations. Also, it can interfere with certain cancer drugs, and reduce the absorption rate of zinc, and certain drugs.

Aerobic Exercise - As is usually the case with other major preventable medical issues, exercise is one of the great natural remedies. It's free, and almost universally effective in treating high blood pressure. How effective? well, a meta analysis of over 105 different exercise studies was conducted. These studies contained over 6805 patients. The results were not surprising. The average reduction across all the studies was a decrease of 4.6 mm hg of systolic pressure. Diastolic pressure had approx. a 3.4 mm hg decrase. Exercise works, so incorporate it for lower blood pressure and a healthier lifestyle.

Yoga - Preliminary studies indicate that yoga may also be a way to manage blood pressure, and in fact may decrease high blood pressure. A study conducted at Yale University by Dr. Sivasankaran took 33 men, average age 55, Ten of which had high blood pressure. He then had them do 3 sessions a week of yoga, 90 minutes per session. After 6 weeks, these people had reduced blood pressure. Besides relieving stress, why this approach works exactly is unknown.

Yoga has been shown to increase the endothelium function, which has to do with the elasticity of the inner cells of blood vessels. Recommended amount: 90 minutes, 3 times a week. Continued on page 2: Herbal Remedies For High Blood Pressure