Do you have high blood pressure or know of anyone with high blood pressure…then have a read, you may just help someone.
Do you know how most blood pressure medications work? By playing around with the minerals, well most of them when you break down their mode of action.
Blood pressure medications belong to a few simple groups…to keep this blog relevant and not putting you into overwhelm, I am just going to explain a few of these groups…and NOTICE the MINERAL names…..
1. Diuretics which basically means you urinate more, hence less blood volume, so lowering blood pressure and these can be further subdivided into a few groups such as
– loop diuretics
– POTASSIUM sparing diuretics
– thiazide diuretics
SO the above play around with primarily sodium, they basically reduce the absorption of sodium in the kidneys and by reducing sodium absorption more water is retained in the urine. HOWEVER, POTASSIUM loss is a SERIOUS side effect of these diuretics and potassium is VITAL, a mineral that is quite a challenge to obtain enough of, even when eating pretty consciously.
The potassium-sparing diuretics were put together as the other two subgroups of diuretics can end up ‘losing a little too much potassium’ from the body and we really want to hold onto any potassium we have and more.
2. Calcium channel blockers
These medicines work by blocking calcium channels 🤗 . So by blocking these calcium channels the blood vessel smooth muscle relaxes which results in reduce vascular resistance…thereby reducing the blood pressure. VOiLA you have reduced blood pressure.
But what does not make sense, is when you ‘mess’ with a mineral you mess with the whole tribe of them, so in essence, we are playing Russain roulette.
Why not work on the root cause? Why not address blood pressure by balancing these minerals?
Did you know high blood pressure is NOT due to high salt intake? SALT MEANING THE REAL UNREFINED SALT. The salt that most people purchase (the white fine powdered variety) is NOT salt, it is sodium chloride, this is not recommended at all, BUT NO SALT is also NOT recommended. We ALL require REAL salt.
If anything from a nutritional perspective high blood pressure is due to
1. stress (just check out the other group of blood pressure-lowering medications they work on basically the ‘fight-flight’ stress system, but medically we give them a more fancy name like alpha-blockers or beta-blockers)
2. low potassium
3. low magnesium
4. consuming white refined sodium chloride (some call this salt)
…to name a few causes….so what do we address as nutritionists?
We address lifestyle WE DO NOT prescribe natural beta-blockers or alpha-blockers as that totally defeats the ability of your body to heal itself. Actually, we would just be playing ‘doctor’ but using ‘green supplements’ that also are not addressing the root cause. We also address mineral balance with Hair Tissue Mineral Analysis, nutrition intake, and we encourage you to throw out the ‘fake salt’, throw out the ‘junk’, the margarine, the sunflower oil, the canola oil etc
We also educate, so that you are EMPOWERED, to make informed decisions.
To health!
Khush