The Silent Killer

The Silent Killer

No, I’m not talking about your old college roommate after burrito night at the dorms. I speak of hypertension. I can remember when high blood pressure was THE focus of primary care physicians and cardiologists. Then sometime in the ‘90’s the focus switched to cholesterol. Now that big pharma’s patents on statin drugs are running out, I’ve notice a switch back to the basics in the literature.

Lately I’ve seen throw backs to warning about salt intake. So much that in some jurisdictions in California and NYC, health departments is contemplating regulating restaurants’ usage. When we consume salt, sodium chloride, the sodium enters our blood stream. Because of homeostasis (the body’s inherit drive to keep everything equal-your body is a socialist) osmotic pressure forces extra fluid into your blood. By the laws of physics, if you increase the volume of a closed system, you increase its pressure. Thus putting extra work on the vessels causing them to harden and occlude which sets off a downward spiral of the above over and over until your lungs fill with fluid and your heart expands then dies.

Step 1, put down the salt shaker. 2) Drink more water. At first this may seem counter-intuitive, but the more water you drink, the more sodium that gets flushed out of your system. 3) Eat more veggies (unsalted of course). Everything that comes out of the ground is high in potassium. Potassium competes for space with sodium in your body. The more you eat, the less sodium, the less sodium, the lower your blood pressure. 4) Chill. Stress raises BP. 5) Chiropractic care. Many research studies have shown that a weekly chiropractic adjustment lowers BP by 10 points.