Now that I've got your attention, I will share with you my story, my struggles with pre-hypertension and hypertension (if you don't want the whole story skip to "2.3 in a nutshell" )
1.1 Introduction
I'm a 27 year old male, height 177 cm, weight 80 kg and since the age of 15 I've been having problems with pre-hypertension (constant of 135/85 mmHg) which was untreated and lead to hypertension (145/95 mmHg) at the age of 27. I'm not a doctor, I'm just a blue collar worker trying to solve my "illness" without the use of damaging pills.
At the age of 15 my pre-hypertension was labeled "essential" by doctors, which for them means "we have no clue why you have pre-hypertension, but here take these pills and start a exercise regimen". I was of normal weight at the time and computer games were much more interesting than exercise so that fell through, while the pills labeled Enalapril had adverse affects on my life (in the form of violent eye watering coughs) so I just stopped taking them and lied to everyone that the doctors said I'm healthy again (eh, so young, so foolish) and the "condition" was left at that. Years later I became a blood donor, went on health check ups as a requirement for my job, started to exercise and there were no mentions of my "condition"...not even one doctor "sound the alarm".
1.2 Fast forward to the age of 27
At the end of the year 2014. I stopped exercising because of ligament injuries to my thumbs and during the next few months gained about 10-12 kg (92kg was my max). At this point I was transferred to another work position, a more stationary work position which had a restaurant next to it. This restaurant was awesome since it had low cost foods and coffee and because of this I had no limits. A month after the transfer during a work day I noticed I was getting dizzy, lightheaded with chest pressure, I felt my heart pounding and started to panic. My colleagues said that I look "white as a rag"...at this point I was in full panic mode, my heart started to race, I felt cold sweats and I was ready to go to hospital...A colleague drove me to hospital where they admitted me with a blood pressure of 180/110 mmHg. I was stunned at the figures and then I remembered my childhood and how I took no care about my blood pressure :( . After I received a Tritace pill, my blood pressure normalized at 130/80 mmHg and I was put in observation for six hours then released with a prescription for Amlodipine (10mg) and Physiotens (0.4mg) until I do a heart ultrasound, kidney ultrasound, urine test, blood test.
1.3 After I did all of these tests the diagnose was as follows:
Heart and arteries are ok with no damage, but the heart is slightly hypertrophic, kidneys are without any abnormalities, blood and urine tests were excellent except for one figure. It showed a higher than normal concentration of Aldosterone hormone. What does this all mean ? The heart was slightly enlarged (hypertrophic) because it has been fighting the increased arterial blood pressure for a while (yea, since the age of 15 or even longer) to get the blood to all of the organs. Just like any muscle, if the heart is tasked to work harder to get the blood to every organ it will naturally increase its size to accommodate for the obstacle of high arterial blood pressure...but the heart was never the problem...Aldosterone hormone was an indicator of what was going on in my body.
1.4 Aldosterone homrone, vital but deadly
If you want you can google this hormone or you can read on what information I've managed to acquired in my search for answers.
This hormone is excreted from the adrenal glands (two small glands on top of our kidneys) which regulates important fluids in our bodies. It's known as the sodium-water-potassium pump and it regulates those 3 fluids...Now...Potassium is important for muscle control, sodium is important for the nervous system and water for all of our bodies' cells. These 3 need to be in perfect balance or bad things start happening...I'm gonna stop here and continue to why we've come to this point- to concentrate on the blood pressure aspect of this story...Aldosterone actually controls blood pressure by increasing blood volume through the consumption of water (water retention). Why does it do this ? Well, the short answer is because our cells demand more water to accommodate for (drum roll please) increased intake of salt (sodium)...the current standard for salt is about 2,3 grams daily for an average adult but because most processed foods have salt (from cookies to bagged soups) we eat as much as 10 g of salt A DAY !
1.5 So there you have it...
The cause of my high blood pressure is of dietary nature. All of my life I have been consuming too much salt and I bet a lot of people have the same problem since our bodies were not made to process so much salt. The argument of "salt is needed for normal function" is valid but here's an example on how little is actually needed for our bodies. There are isolated African tribes that consume no more than 0,2 g of salt a day (that is equivalent to one small processed chocolate snack or cookie...yea...1 cookie has all the salt we need, it's so tragic :/ )
"...but how can you be certain that it's salt that has increased your arterial blood pressure?"
After learning a little bit more about the sodium-water-potassium pump, I started to eat foods that have no salt added to them or that have less than 1 g of salt in 100 g of product (controling my daily salt intake so it doesn't pass 1,5g), I increased my water consumption to "flush out the extra sodium" and consumed foods high in potassium and...who would have thunk it, after 2-3 days my blood pressure readings were around 125/75 mmHg which is NORMAL...in turn if I overindulge with salty foods, it shoots up to 150/100 mmHg
1.6 Now to explain why I say "damaging pharmaceutical".
After I did all of the mentioned tests one remained which would determine why my Aldosterone was high. From a doctor's point of view the cause was an irregularity with one of the adrenal glands, but since I've managed to normalize my blood pressure by reducing salt, there is probably no irregularity with my adrenal glands...if there were my body would still excrete too much Aldosterone no matter how much salt I consume and in turn I would retain water which would increase my blood volume and that would lead to high arterial blood pressure (but just in case I will do the remaining test as soon as possible). While waiting for this test I was still on Amlodipin (10mg in the morning) and Physiotens (0.4 mg before bed) which had adverse affects on my life. They caused anxiety and panic attacks due to morning sickness, fatigue, loss of motivation, a feeling of detachment from the world, mood swings, dizziness, loss of libido, a unsatisfactory erection and chest pain with pressure. I reported this to my doctor but he told me to remain on this therapy until we do the Aldosterone test (after which he would probably give me an antagonist to aldosterone (for example spironolactone ). This is all fine and dandy but there is one big problem with aldosterone antagonists, although they block aldosterone they also block testosterone which everyone knows as the man-hormone. Well, guess what happens when a man doesn't get his "hit" of testosterone. Let me enlighten you: loss of libido, erectile dysfunction, gynecomastia (fancy way of saying - grows boobs), testicle shrinkage, mood swings, etc...
Well, let's go back to after leaving the doctors office with the unchanged amlodipin and physiotens therapy...after a couple of unbearable days filled with panic attacks, depression I decided to whine of these damaging pills. I started to reduce the amount and after a couple of days I completely stopped with no ill affects. My energy levels rose up, I felt happy to be alive again and said to myself "This can't be the only solution to my problems!". Although at the time I didn't feel any symptoms from my high blood pressure I decided to go with alternative methods.
2.1 Alternative...better...but harder than simply popping some pills
First I learned about aldosterone, then I stumbled upon a article about table salt and how damaging it is since it's refined salt. Believe it or not, salt should have 84 vital minerals for our bodies but refined table salt only has 2, the first is sodium chloride (about 97%) and the rest is iodine (which was first extracted and then added back in, madness :/ ) and anti-caking compounds (additives). Why ? Although there could be many answers I believe in this one > because salt companies want to earn more money and by extracting and selling these minerals separately they do just that while salt buyers get ultra-mega cheap prices for table salt...well...don't salt anything with table salt ever again ! I personally use Himalayan salt. The taste is the same, but it has a pink color which is actually cool :) . This is its story, It is mined in caves in Pakistan where sea evaporated 250 million years ago leaving salt crystals which contain water salt. So it's from an age long before pollution and that's why I consume it (that and the explanation that it's not refined, so it contains all of the 84 minerals that our bodies need)...Now, after I started consuming Himalayan salt (in reasonable amounts!!!), I reduced processed foods, added more vegetables and fruits (mostly those that have higher concentrations of potassium like potatoes, tomatoes, oranges, bananas and so on). After this I lurked around the internets to find a herb that would help in lowering blood pressure. One such herb is garlic (yea, the smelly one). In its natural form with daily consumption it can lower blood pressure by 8%-10% which is awesome (capsules can help, but fresh is preferred so people started to call me the vampire repeller ^^ ). Another very useful herb is dandelion, more accurately dried dandelion roots. It has an awful taste but add some honey or agave syrup and you're good to go :) . What it does is it acts as a natural diuretic, that means it makes you piss a lot more. Why is this good? There are 2 methods in flushing out salt from your body. First is with sweat (exercise) and the other is via urine. The first one is more effective since our kidneys can flush out tiny amounts of salt at a given time...with these alterations to my life I've managed to naturally normalize my blood pressure.
2.3 ...so In a nutshell
My struggle with hypertension was labelled by doctors as "essential" (unknown reason) but it actually was,is and will be about the amount of salt I consume...and just maybe I'm not the only one...If you don't have failing organs, if your heart is in perfect condition but you still suffer from increased arterial blood pressure, try to reduce your salt intake...but don't cut it all together, 1 gram per day is more than enough ! Increase your water consumption (to flush out the salt you have in your body - try dandelion root tea as it is a natural diuretic), eat more vegetables and fruits that contain high amounts of potassium (like baked potatoes, fresh tomatoes, bananas) and CONTROL YOUR SALT INTAKE. Most processed foods have salt added to them, one big offender are packaged soups. You should read every label and consume only those products that have small amounts (small is 0,25 grams in 100 g of product where you plan to eat 300g of that product or 1,5 g of salt in 100g of product if you plan to eat 50 grams of that product)...try this...and if your blood pressure normalizes after 2-4 days (usually it just suddenly drops to normal after the excess salt has left the body) then you my friend are an enemy of the modern world and in order for you to keep healthy you'll need to forget about restaurant bought hot dogs, hamburgers, french fries and so on....If you are not ready for this change, expect heart failure in your future because although our bodies are really resilient, even they can't function a long time in a manner that they are not designed for
If you want to know more about what I've changed in my life except the above mentioned...read on...
2.4 The road to health is dark and full of temptations
Well...I've totally changed my life since my "episode" earlier this year...I was a meat eating, don't give a crap, machine that was living by the "I will start eating healthy after a heart attack" mantra. I'm happy that the fore mentioned heart attack didn't happen, but I'm also glad that my body gave me a sign "Yo dude, this ain't gonna fly" in form of a dizzy, lightheaded, heart pumping, panic "episode"...Now...I went from 92 kg to around 80 kg without any exercise and I don't consider my current dietary regimen as a "diet" since I plan to eat this way until the rest of my life...reading this, you have to realize that if you choose this path, it will be awful,hard and with many temptations...The first thing I did was shift my pasta and bread needs to whole wheat (not that tasty as plain white bread or pasta, but healthy). Next i started to buy cream cheeses that have low fat content (and of course less than 0,5 grams of salt ), along with yogurts (same low fat content) and low fat milk. As for fluids, lots of tap water (in my country it is still healthy enough), 100% content juices or freshly squeezed fruits with water and honey (or agave syrup) and I've totally removed carbonated drinks from my menu since they contain lots of preservatives and artificial sweeteners which are cancerous. Coffee is another offender I've removed (cry) and instead I drink decaffeinated coffee. As for breakfast meals I've removed classic or fitness corn flakes since both of them have abnormal amounts of salt, and instead of them added oats with low fat milk....now we come to meats....If you are a big meat eater like I was, I got bad news for you :((((((( . Most processed meats have salt added to them as a preservative, if not salt then artificial sodium compounds (which are worse). The least salt offender is packaged poultry (donno why :/ ). Some say that freshly cut meats have no salt, but I'm not sure about that one (maybe if they were iced). I've opted for canned tuna since tuna has potassium and by washing it before I put it in a salad or a sandwich it has 80-90% less salt than on the label. I've also lowered how many times a week I eat meat (since I do sometimes buy packaged meat). When I cook meats I use grill pans to escape refined cooking oils which are big offenders...there is one more thing I've started to do (this isn't for everyone). I've started to read product labels and If I spot a cancerous compound (additives) I opt for another one that doesn't have those additives (I use specialized web pages that have E numbers because not all additives are unhealthy, most are natural occurring)....Well...that's about it for dietary changes and soon I'll begin some much needed exercise...eventually... :/
2.5 Personal thoughts about this alternative
...let me tell you something...people around you won't understand...they will tempt you with foods high in salt since the modern world doesn't really care about how much salt goes where. Sure we hear about how much salt nations consumes, but who really cares? Right? Food companies don't, your parents don't, your boss doesn't...heck even your doctors don't care since they have a easy solution "here takes these pills". Pills will only help you with symptoms, your high blood pressure is a symptom not a cause. You and you alone can help yourself...and don't worry if you "fall of the wagon". Through life we learn ! So next time you'll be able to control your temptations....I "fell" a couple of times since I've changed my life, but I'm not giving up, so why should you ? People under the Himalayas have been known to live to the age of 165, so why should we die at 50-60 ? I want to see my children grow up, my grand kids too ! I want to see technology progress, I want to see the future....No....no giving up !
Good luck !
