The Emperor's New Clothes: Aggressive New Guidelines for Prehypertension

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The Emperor's New Clothes: Aggressive New Guidelines for " Prehypertension "

http://www.westonaprice.org/moderndiseases/prehypertension.html

By Paul J. Rosch, MD, FACP

 

Up until a few weeks ago, if you asked any one, including a doctor, what was

considered a normal or desirable adult blood pressure, 120/80 would have been

the most frequent response. Not any more. According to the new " official "

guidelines, 120/80 puts you in a new disease category called " prehypertension "

and

at increased risk for heart attack, stroke, or kidney disease. The

recommendations for rectifying this potentially deadly disorder are the usual

advice to

lose weight, avoid salt and sodium-rich foods, exercise regularly, stop

smoking and reduce stress.

 

However, we all know how difficult it is to achieve these goals, much less

maintain them. And even if you do, the results are not that rewarding, even for

patients with blood pressures of 160/100 and higher. People with

prehypertension usually discover that none of these lifestyle modification will

normalize

their blood pressure, which means that medications will be required. Chalk

another one up for the drug companies.

 

The Emperor's New Clothes

 

The new guidelines are contained in the Seventh Report of the Joint National

Committee on Prevention, Detection, Evaluation, and Treatment of High Blood

Pressure (JNC-7), issued in May of 2003. The measures proposed for treating high

blood pressure in JNC-7 do not differ greatly from those contained in the

first JNC report, which came out in 1977, namely life-style changes (lose

weight,

avoid salt and sodium-rich foods, exercise regularly, stop smoking and reduce

stress) plus the administration of thiazide diuretics (medications to

decrease water retention) to those whose blood pressure does not respond to diet

and

exercise.

 

These JNC-7 guidelines bring to mind the story of the vain emperor gulled

into parading through town naked by two tailors who had convinced him that the

cloth they used for his new clothes would be invisible to anyone too stupid or

incompetent to appreciate its superior quality. The new disease of

prehypertension proposed by JNC-7 is like the emperor's new clothes--an

invisible and

imaginary disease foisted on a gullible public. Even though its authoritative

proponents may be acting in good faith, there is reason to believe they may have

been unduly influenced by others with their own private agenda.

 

Orthodox Advice

 

The first advice patients with high blood pressure generally receive is to

significantly restrict sodium intake. However, the vast majority fail to respond

to this measure unless they have certain genetic traits. In some, calcium

deficiency can be the culprit and they improve with calcium supplementation.

These individuals may actually worsen on a low-sodium regimen since restricting

sodium calls for restricting the intake of dairy products, a major source of

dietary calcium. Others benefit from potassium and/or magnesium supplements.

 

Jogging and running may help lower blood pressure for some people but more

often has little effect and can even cause a rise.

 

High blood pressure or hypertension, like fever, is not a diagnosis like

diabetes, but rather a description. It is simply an elevated blood pressure

reading on some measuring device. The condition can have many different causes.

That

helps to explain why we have some 100 drugs to treat high blood pressure.

Unfortunately, there is no algorithm to guarantee which one will work best or be

the safest for any specific patient. Similarly, a fever of 103° in a patient

with lupus may require giving cortisone but if that identical 103° temperature

reading were due to tuberculosis, cortisone could bring the fever down but

might prove lethal. Conversely, appropriate antibiotics would be an effective

treatment for tuberculosis but would provide little benefit in lupus.

 

Risk Factors and Other Fallacies

 

In order to successfully treat a disease, it is necessary to remove or reduce

its cause rather than its manifestations or markers. Treating persistently

elevated blood pressure or temperature is very different from treating elevated

blood sugar. The goal in diabetes is simply to lower the blood sugar to

normal; responses to medication and/or diet are much more predictable and

sustained

since the cause can almost always be identified.

 

For blood pressure, the situation is much more complicated. Much of the " one

blood pressure fits all " approach comes from confusion over what a " risk

factor " really represents. Most risk factors for heart disease are merely " risk

markers " that simply have some statistical association with an increased

incidence of coronary events. There are over 300 risk factors for heart attacks,

including a deep earlobe crease, premature vertex baldness, high selenium

toenail

levels, having a pot belly, having been born in northern Finland, not having a

daily nap or drinking more or less than one or two glasses of wine a day.

Attempting to treat or remove such markers will accomplish nothing since they do

not cause coronary disease. The same can be true for lowering an elevated

systolic or diastolic blood pressure unless the treatment is directed at what is

causing the problem, which is usually not clear.

 

Hypertension and Heart Disease

 

High blood pressure is said to predispose an individual to heart attack,

stroke and kidney disease.

 

Surprisingly, no randomized clinical trials have ever proven that lowering an

elevated systolic blood pressure to 140 reduces the risk for death due to

coronary disease. A good example of this was the multicenter Multiple Risk

Factor

Trial (MRFIT) designed to demonstrate that reducing hypertension, high

cholesterol and smoking would lower coronary mortality. After screening some

350,000

middle-aged men, researchers selected close to 13,000 believed to be at

greater jeopardy because of a preponderance of these putative risk factors. They

were divided into a treatment group to lower these markers and a control group

that received usual care.

 

After ten years and $115 million, the treatment group substantially achieved

their objectives--they had lower cholesterol and lower blood pressure than

when they had started, and many had stopped smoking. However, these

conscientious

patients fared no differently from controls. In fact, a subset of

hypertensives treated with diuretics had the highest mortality rates, probably

from

ventricular fibrillation due to potassium depletion. The MRFIT objective was to

get

blood pressures below 140/90. One can only wonder what the mortality rate

would have been if under 120/80 had been the goal.

 

As for stroke, some studies have shown that lowering blood pressure can

prevent stroke, but the absolute effect is less than 1 percent. And only very

high

blood pressure will destroy kidney function.

 

Stress and Pseudohypertension

 

My personal experience has been that a significant percentage of patients

being treated for " essential hypertension " can stop their medication without any

adverse effects. When such individuals are admitted to the hospital for

surgery or some unrelated condition and these drugs are discontinued

deliberately or

inadvertently, it is not unusual for blood pressures to fall to normal levels

and remain there, only to rise again after discharge. Stress-related or

" white coat " hypertension is quite common. In one study published in the Journal

of

the American Medical Association, more than one in four patients with

elevated blood pressures in the doctor's office were found to have normal values

on

ambulatory monitoring. All were taken off drugs with no adverse effects.

 

Decades ago, when healthy young men being examined for insurance policies or

entry into the armed services had high readings but no retinopathy,

albuminuria or other indication of sustained hypertension, we used to reassure

them and

have them lie down and relax in a quiet room. After 15 or 20 minutes, repeated

measurements were invariably much lower and usually normal. Busy doctors

don't have time for that today. It's much easier and safer for them to prescribe

a

pill, since everyone knows that hypertension is the " silent killer. " In

addition, treating hypertension is easy, doesn't take much time or energy and is

apt to be quite remunerative since periodic electrocardiograms and chest X-rays

to monitor cardiac size and laboratory tests are readily justified. The doctor

only needs to ask a few questions, the patient often does not need to disrobe

in an examining room and the entire encounter often takes less than ten

minutes.

 

A not uncommon scenario is that when the patient returns after the initial

diagnosis of hypertension has been made and a medication has been prescribed, he

or she is even more nervous, blood pressure is still high or higher and the

dose is increased. This may be repeated on subsequent visits with prescriptions

for additional drugs. The result may be dizziness or other side effects that

the patient now attributes to a worsening of hypertension, causing even more

stress.

 

It is also not generally appreciated that heart rate and blood pressure shoot

up whenever we speak or try to communicate in some other way. The seminal

investigations of this phenomenon have been done by Jim Lynch who showed that

such elevations are greater if we are talking to someone of perceived higher

social stature, more rapidly than usual, and if the content of the conversation

deals with some important personal issue. Blood pressure rises in deaf mutes

when they use sign language but not when they move their hands meaninglessly but

with the same amount of energy. The only time this does not occur is in

schizophrenic patients off of medication, possibly because they no longer

communicate.

 

I have been involved in this research with Jim for over twenty-five years.

Although these transient spikes in both systolic and diastolic pressure can be

alarmingly high, patients are completely unaware of this and have no symptoms.

By using an automated blood pressure device that displays systolic, diastolic

and mean arterial pressure on a monitor, it is possible to teach patients how

to lower their pressures.

 

We have also found that these rises are not blunted by any antihypertensive

drugs and are actually exaggerated by beta blockers. It is not uncommon for

anxious patients to talk immediately prior to or even while the doctor is

inflating the cuff, which can increase blood pressure up to 50 percent in some

people. There is no good evidence that such hyperreactivity is associated with

any

increased incidence of sustained hypertension. The same is true for elite

weight lifters, who can have pressures of 400/250 or higher when they perform

the

supreme Valsalva maneuver.

 

Another source of pseudohypertension is that the same-size cuff is used for

all adults, which can cause significantly false high readings in fat arms. The

width of the cuff should be 40 percent of the circumference of the arm. This

is important because of the large number of obese people and others who are

engaged in body building activities.

 

Time of day, room temperature, a full bladder, eating, drinking or smoking

within the past hour, standing, sitting or supine can all influence

measurements.

 

Treating Numbers Instead of People

 

Authoritative advice for treating blood pressure has changed dramatically

over the years. Forty years ago, the chapter on hypertension in Harrison's

Textbook of Medicine stated " Whatever the form of therapy selected, it must not

be

forgotten that the physician who treats hypertension is treating the patient as

a whole, rather than the separate manifestations of a disease. The first

principle of the therapy of hypertension is the knowledge of when to treat and

when not to treat . . . . A woman who has tolerated her diastolic pressure of

120

for 10 years without symptoms or deterioration does not need immediate

treatment for hypertension. Marked elevation of systolic pressure, with little

or no

rise in diastolic, does not constitute an indication for depressor therapy.

This is particularly true in the elderly or arteriosclerotic patient, even

though the diastolic pressure may also be moderately elevated. " A physician

following this advice today would be liable for malpractice.

 

The chapter, which was written by John Merrill, a leading authority on

hypertension from Harvard, goes on to emphasize that " The physician must

constantly

weigh the value of making his patient 'blood pressure conscious' by a specific

regimen and regular follow-up, against real need for any particular form of

therapy. Above all, in treatment or prognostication, he must avoid engendering

in the patient a fear of the disease which may be unwarranted in our present

state of knowledge. " Contrast this with the current cookie cutter approach of

treating numbers that are often meaningless instead of people.

 

There is absolutely nothing new about prehypertension, which was previously

referred to as " high normal " at levels higher than 120/80. This would still be

a preferable description since nobody knows whether these individuals will go

on to develop sustained hypertension or are at any significantly increased

risk for its complications. All these new guidelines do is convert 45 million

healthy Americans into new patients by creating fear. This is precisely what the

experts emphasized we should take pains never to do! How could so many doctors

have been so wrong for so many years?

 

Whatever happened to the Hippocratic dictum Primum non nocere (First of all,

do no harm)? It used to be the primary concern of all doctors but seems to

have now been sidelined or forgotten in the frenetic and impersonal pace of

modern medical practice.

 

JNC-7 Recommendations

 

The original 1977 JNC guidelines followed several studies showing that blood

pressure could be lowered with thiazide diuretics. Subsequent JNC reports

repeatedly recommended the use of diuretics as initial treatment based on

additional reports demonstrating their efficacy.

 

Despite this, the use of diuretics actually declined over the next decade or

so, possibly because many went off patent and were no longer profitable. In

addition, the pharmaceutical companies began to vigorously promote newer drugs

and the 1993 JNC-5 guidelines added angiotensin-converting enzyme (ACE)

inhibitors and beta blockers as first-line therapy. Their sponsors argued that

these

more expensive drugs might be preferable since thiazide therapy could

contribute to diabetes and abnormal heart rhythms, especially at higher doses.

The new

medications also had side effects but their promoters claimed that they were

more likely to reduce complications such as heart attacks and stroke.

 

However, many were not as effective even at higher doses or when combined

with other new anithypertensives. Specialists soon found that half of such

patients with blood pressure readings above 160/100 on two or more of these

drugs

improved rapidly when diuretics were added or their dosage was increased. JNC-6

removed recommendations for ACE inhibitors and beta-blockers and the new

guidelines are about the same as those proposed over 25 years ago, save for this

new and confusing diagnosis of prehypertension.

 

However, diuretics are not the most effective or safest treatment for all

hypertensives and other drugs are clearly superior for certain patients. What is

wrong is that physicians are treating a reading on a blood pressure machine in

a cookbook fashion rather than the patient or the cause of the problem.

 

Guidelines for Guidelines

 

The law requires that all important Federal rules, including guidelines that

affect the public, must be written and promulgated according to the Government

Code. This code mandates formal selection of a committee, pre-announcement of

all meetings, open meetings that encourage testimony from all interested

parties as well as written records, all of which must be preserved in a special

docket. Everything is then reviewed in order to provide a written discussion of

all the relevant evidence leading to the final rules or guidelines that must

be published in the Federal Register. In addition, if the published guidelines

are not consonant with a logical review of the evidence presented, the

recommendations may be overturned by legal action.

 

Since the new JNC-7 guidelines seemed to fall under these rules, I accessed

the Federal Register but was unable to find anything relevant. When I contacted

the Government Printing Office to inquire about this I received a reply

confirming they had no JNC records and was referred to a NIH web site.

 

This lack of adherence to procedure is remarkably reminiscent of the National

Cholesterol Education Program (NCEP) for the detection and treatment of high

cholesterol. The first NCEP report issued in 1988 was timed to coincide with

the introduction of Mevacor, Merck's new cholesterol-lowering drug. In an

unprecedented action it was released directly to the public, weeks before

doctors

could read the scientific information on which it was based. The last set of

revised guidelines in 2001, that tripled the number of Americans advised to take

statins, was also publicized prematurely.

 

In both instances, the guidelines were published in the Journal of the

American Medical Association but not the Federal Register. There was no public

notice of any meetings, the meetings were not open to the public, public input

was

not solicited, and detailed records and testimony of committee meetings were

not kept. The Joint National Committee on Prevention, Detection, Evaluation,

and Treatment of High Blood Pressure (JNC) has followed the same format in order

to bypass Government rules and regulations.

 

When NIH officials were questioned about this lack of protocol, they

explained that the cholesterol and hypertension guidelines were written by a

non-government committee of experts that they had selected and were therefore

not

subject to the Federal Register regulations. However, these guidelines are

presented by government spokespersons at government press conferences and are

promoted

in the media here and abroad as the latest government guidelines. The new

JNC-7 report made its debut at a special session of the American Society of

Hypertension Annual meeting in New York. This took place on the same day in May

as

the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute Press Conference in Washington

and coincided with appearance of the JNC " Express Report " on the Journal of the

American Medical Association web site.

 

Suspicions

 

My personal suspicion is that powerful pharmaceutical interests were behind

much of this, just as they are behind the creation of National Hypertension

Month in May. Although JNC-7 reverted to the previous advice that inexpensive

diuretics were the first choice, it also emphasized that " Most patients with

hypertension will require two or more antihypertensive medications to achieve

goal

pressure. " A Novartis spokesperson lavishly praised the report in a press

release emphasizing that " Inadequate control of blood pressure has become a

public health crisis. We are encouraged that new approaches recommended by JNC-7

will provide impetus for improvement. " That's hardly surprising. Novartis, with

its 73,000 employees in 140 countries and US sales of $21 billion per year has

all the hypertension treatment bases covered. They manufacture Lopressor, a

beta blocker, Lotensin, an ACE inhibitor, Diovan, an angiotensin II blocker,

Lotrel, a combination ACE inhibitor and calcium channel blocking agent, as well

as products combining these with a thiazide diuretic.

 

Despite all the hoopla, many physicians were not as enthusiastic. Some were

skeptical that the new guidelines offered anything that was either new or

helpful. Several prominent authorities on hypertension denounced it as based on

conclusions that were not only unwarranted but also misleading.

 

The full study will not be published until the fall and the report in the

JAMA Express raised some eyebrows. This feature is designed for rapid

dissemination of new breakthroughs, for which JNC-7 hardly qualified. The

journal's peer

review process time for this is 24-48 hours and all 33 JNC authors would have

had to respond within 72 hours, which is highly doubtful. But that wasn't the

only complaint. The recommendation for diuretics as first-line therapy was

largely based on the Antihypertensive and Lipid-Lowering Treatment to Prevent

Heart Attack Trial (ALLHAT), another multi-million dollar study that produced

dubious conclusions. ALLHAT results were also reported early in the JAMA Express

and some feel that anything dealing with statins receives this preferential

treatment. This holds true for other respected peer reviewed publications such

as The Lancet, which has also expedited statin studies despite the fact that

they show nothing new or significant. Conversely, it is very hard to get

anything negative about statins published, even when the data is solid. Perhaps

this

has something to do with the enormous revenues publications derive from statin

advertisements.

 

John Laragh, Director of the Cardiovascular Center at the New York

Presbyterian Hospital-Cornell Medical Center, founded the American Society of

Hypertension, is Editor-in Chief of its Journal, and Past-President of the

International

Society of Hypertension. He is one of the world's leading authorities on

hypertension because of his delineation of the renin-angiotensin-aldosterone

system, which landed him on the cover of Time Magazine. I grew up with John, we

have been personal and professional friends for well over 50 years. He was a

founding Trustee of The American Institute of Stress of which I am the

president.

I was tempted to ask him about his opinion of the new guidelines, but didn't

have to. His objections to this and the ALLHAT study were vividly detailed at a

press conference and were summed up by his colleague, Larry Resnick, as

essentially " garbage. "

 

Laragh believes that patients with high renin hypertension are more prone to

have complications than low-renin, salt-sensitive hypertensives and respond

better to drugs other than diuretics. Björn Folkow, another authority and

recipient of the Hans Selye award and numerous other honours, has emphasized the

role of stress, the sympathetic nervous system and catecholamines.

 

I suspect both these good friends to the decades old " mosaic

theory " that hypertension rarely has a single cause and can result from

dysequilibrium in the above and other contributory components. Researchers are

now

focusing in on our old friend inflammation as a cause that may explain its link

with

coronary heart disease, obesity, diabetes and other disorders. Inflammatory

cytokines like Interleukin II released by deep abdominal fat cells that

contribute to insulin resistance and metabolic syndrome are increased in

hypertension

and both angiotensin II and aldosterone have been found to promote

inflammation. Increased c-reactive protein (CRP) levels were reported in newly

diagnosed

untreated hypertensives at the same meeting and another paper showed a

correlation between elevated CRP and hypertension complications.

 

About the Author

Dr. Paul J Rosch, MD, FACP is president of the American Institute of Stress,

www.stress.org

 

 

What is Normal Blood Pressure?

 

Blood pressure (BP) is essentially determined by cardiac output (CO) or the

force with which blood is pumped out of the left ventricle and the degree of

systemic vascular resistance (SVR) that is encountered. This is much like Ohm's

law governing the strength of an electrical current, so that BP=CO x SVR.

Hypertension can be caused by increased cardiac output, increased vascular

resistance or both. Although the cause of essential or primary hypertension in a

patient may not be known, it is safe to say that it is mediated by one or both

of

these two mechanisms.

 

Blood pressure readings are given with an upper and lower number. The upper

or systolic number is the pressure when your heart beats; the lower or

diastolic measurement is the pressure when your heart relaxes between beats.

 

Just 25-30 years ago, doctors were taught that normal blood pressure was the

patient's age plus 100 over 90. Thus if you were 50 years old, a blood pre

ssure reading of 150/90 was considered completely normal; if you were 70, then

170/90 was normal. This guideline reflects the physiological fact that the

systolic blood pressure (like cholesterol levels) gradually rises with age. As

the

blood vessels narrow and become more rigid, more pressure is required to move

the blood through the arteries and veins. In general, the diastolic pressure

rises until around age 55 and then starts to decline.

 

The first Report of the Joint National Committee on Prevention, Detection,

Evaluation, and Treatment of High Blood Pressure (JNC-1), in 1977, stipulated

120/80 as optimal and 120-129/80-84 as within the normal range. High normal was

130-139/85-89 and Stage 1 or mild hypertension was 140-159/90-99. Stage 2

(160-179/100-109), Stage 3 (179-209/100-110) and Stage 4 ( >210/>120) reflected

increasing degrees of severity. JNC-7 has decreed that a reading of 120/80,

formerly recognized as optimal, puts you in a category of " pre-hypertension, "

which must be treated with life-style changes and drugs.

 

What should you do if one number is high and the other is normal or low?

Which is more important, the systolic (upper) or diastolic (lower) measurement?

The previous emphasis on diastolic pressure was based on early studies on young

people. A systolic pressure above 140 with a diastolic pressure below 90 is

referred to as isolated systolic hypertension. It is common in older individuals

due to hardening of the arteries and slight elevations were not considered

serious. Studies now show that an elevated systolic pressure is an independent

risk factor for complications that is far greater than the risk associated with

a high diastolic pressure in older patients with hypertension. The same may

apply to many older individuals with arteriosclerotic vessels, where a higher

blood pressure is needed to maintain adequate blood flow to the kidneys and

other vital organs.

 

Nevertheless, some senior citizens will consistently complain of weakness and

dizziness if their blood pressures are lower than the 120/80 value that is

now recommended. This is particularly true for women, who normally tend to have

higher blood pressures than men in this age group.

 

Most patients with hypertension have no symptoms and blood pressure

elevations are often discovered during a routine physical examination or if

measurements are obtained in connection with application for life insurance,

employment

or blood donation rather than any complaint due to its presence.

 

Some Causes of Hypertension

 

Accepted causes of severely high blood pressure include:

 

KIDNEY DISEASE: Narrowing of the renal artery and kidney disease can cause

the release of renin, a powerful hormone that can increase sodium retention and

vascular resistance.

 

Primary aldosteronism and Cushing's disease: These conditions can result in

an increase of adrenal cortical hormones that also cause sodium retention.

 

Pheochromocytoma is a tumor of the adrenal medulla that secretes excess

amounts of catecholamines like noradrenalin and adrenaline that can increase

peripheral resistance as well as cardiac output, leading to high blood pressure.

 

DIABETES: In diabetics, red blood cells are often less deformable and unable

to squeeze through narrow capillaries.

 

ATHEROSCLEROSIS: Narrowing of the arteries requires greater pressure to force

blood through.

 

Other theories include:

 

DEFICIENCY OF CoQ10: CoQ10 deficiency impairs the ability of the heart to

pump blood properly, and leads to compensation with a higher diastolic reading.

Diastolic dysfunction is an impairment in the relaxation (filling) phase of the

cardiac cycle which is the phase requiring much more ATP and CoQ10 than the

systolic (contraction ) phase. Dr. Peter Langsjoen, an expert on CoQ10 and

heart disease, has had excellent success treating high diastolic blood pressure

with this nutrient.

 

INCREASED BLOOD VISCOSITY: According to this theory, elevated blood pressure

is an adaptive response to an elevation in blood viscosity, where the blood

cells tend to clump together, impairing circulation in the tiny capillaries. A

common cause of increased viscosity is stress. Sugar consumption can increase bl

ood viscosity as well. Smokers and those suffering from sleep apnea often

have high hematocrit readings (indicating increased viscosity) and frequently

suffer from hypertension.

 

It makes sense to treat high blood pressure by addressing the causes of the

above conditions, resorting to blood pressure-lowering drugs only when these

measures fail to bring down blood pressure that is dangerously high.

 

Diet and Hypertension

 

There's not a lot of good science out there to provide specific dietary

guidelines for lowering blood pressure, but the following suggestions may help:

 

Switch to unrefined salt; avoid commercial salt. This is the number one

treatment suggestion of our own Dr. Cowan who finds that the simple measure of

removing refined salt from the diet can bring down high blood pressure in the

majority of his patients. (And avoiding commercial salt will also help you avoid

processed foods, because most contain gobs of refined salt.)

 

Use butter, avoid margarines and spreads containing trans fats. Trans fatty

acids inhibit biochemical processes in the cell membranes. High blood pressure

is a likely outcome of the ensuing biochemical chaos.

 

Take cod liver oil: The fat-soluble vitamins in cod liver oil will help you

deal with stress, nourish the glands and organs and aid mineral absorption.

Prostaglandins that help normalize blood pressure are made from DHA, a special

fatty acid contained in cod liver oil.

 

Get adequate protein. Studies indicate that dietary protein helps normalize

blood pressure.

 

Eat heart muscle or take vitamin CoQ10. Dr. Peter Langsjoen has found that

CoQ10 can help normalize high diastolic blood pressure in a majority of cases.

 

Avoid refined sugar and fructose: Refined sugars increase blood viscosity and

tend to deplete many nutrients.

 

Eat plenty of fruits and vegetables, preferably organic.

 

Avoid exposure to cadmium in cigarettes, heavily sprayed produce and farm

chemicals. People with high blood pressure have three times more cadmium in

their

bodies than others (Lancet 1976;i:717-8).

 

Use bone broths and drink hard water to provide minerals like calcium and

magnesium.

 

This article appeared in Wise Traditions in Food, Farming and the Healing

Arts, the quarterly magazine of the Weston A. Price Foundation, Fall 2003.

Copyright Notice: The material on this site is copyrighted by the Weston A.

Price Foundation.

 

 

 

 

[Guest guest]

Interesting that the authoritative sources failed to mention that

physical stressors that increase blood pressure also include:

 

malnutrition, which can be caused by empty calories or even commonly

bowel malabsorption due to dysbiosis. Magnesium and calcium were

mentioned but how about potassium deficiency? B-vitamins?;

 

toxin load, also most commonly from bowel dysbiosis but many other

sources;

 

chronic infection which might indicate low immune response too;

 

leaky gut syndrome;

 

electromagnetic radiation.

 

 

Bonnie.