LifeCare Chiropractic

The Best Chiropractic Care in Mesa, Arizona

Hypertension

Can Artificial Lighting Raise Blood Pressure?

by

As a way of background, asymmetric dimethylarginine (ADMA) is nitric oxide’s (NO) arch enemy.  NO is a small molecule that helps blood vessels relax, leading to a lower blood pressure.
Just in case you think you’ve never heard of something like this concept before, Viagra works by affecting NO levels.  So, higher levels of ADMA will lead to higher blood pressure.
It is very well accepted that prediabetes increases ADMA levels, which is why most cases of high blood pressure are actually prediabetes in disguise.  What I was not aware of is that oxidative stress also leads to an increase in ADMA levels (the same mechanism as insulin resistance–by inhibiting the enzyme that breaks down ADMA).
This particular study finds that melatonin, on the other hand, actually blocks this process, leading to normal levels of ADMA.  This means that normal sleep patterns and exposure to as little artificial light as possible at night, can help normalize ADMA levels and hence blood pressure.

 

Think You’re Not at Risk for Heart Disease? Take This Test and Find Out

by

Prevent heart disease
McCarony/Dollar Photo Club

 

Heart disease is not something that we need to educate the public on. Everyone’s got ideas on how to prevent heart disease.

But, apparently, there’s some massive disconnect between what we need to do and what we are doing.  A recently study revealed that not a single person out of 1,731 were living a lifestyle that included Life’s Simple 7 established by the American Heart Association.  Not a single one.

But I’m confident that not a single person out of the 1,731 actually wanted to have a heart attack or leave his or her family with the untimely death of a loved one.

So why the disconnect?  This particular study may help give you some insight as to why YOU haven’t adopted at least the Simple 7.

In it, researchers looked at a group of 5,863 patients and asked about his or her individual perception of  risk of heart disease based on established risk factors.  The patient’s perceived risk was then compared to his or her ACTUAL risk based on established risk factors.

Individuals were asked to rate his or her heart disease risk for the next years as low, intermediate or high.  Based on these responses, they were classified as hypo-perceivers (the patient’s perceived his or her risk of heart disease as lower than it actually was) and normo-perceivers (the patient’s perceived risk was on par with his or her actual risk).  Here’s what they found:

  • Cardiovascular risk was intermediate in 45.7% and high in 54.3% of individuals as estimated by the Lifetime Risk Score (LRS).
  • Shockingly, 83.9% were hypo-perceivers, thinking that they were at a lower risk than they actually were.
  • A mere 16.1% estimated their risk correctly.

Talk about a massive disconnect.  First of all, EVERYONE in the study had at least an intermediate risk for heart disease.  This is a sad reflection on the overall state of health.  But how could so many of these patients be so unaware at how great his or her risk is??

The rest of the study may give us some insight into just how much our “take a pill to fix it” society has screwed up our perceptions:

  • Smokers were 204% more likely to underestimate their risk.
  • Those with cholesterol problems were 121% more likely to underestimate risk.
  • Sedentary people were 167% more likely.
  • Those who took meds? A whopping 350% more likely to underestimate his or her risk.
  • On the flip side, those with a higher BMI (64%), high blood pressure (43%), depression (54%) and stress (60%) were at a lower risk of hypo-perception.

I have said this time and time and time again.  Taking medications to “fix” your problems does no such thing.  In almost every situation, medications give you a false sense of security.  Even though your blood pressure, cholesterol or blood sugar has gotten better on the meds, it translates very weakly into actually changing your risk of the things you are really worried about like heart attacks, stroke or death.

In other words, you will die with better numbers, but you WILL STILL DIE.

While this is a strong statement, we have seen it play out over and over in the medical literature.  This study just reinforces the fact that our drug-oriented medical approach is creating a society that BELIEVES it is at a lower risk for heart disease, when in reality, it is not.  There is a very high likelihood that you have some degree of risk for heart disease, unless you have adopted at least Life’s Simple 7 (click here for more info on the Simple 7 and see where you stand….personally I’m at a 9.4/10 because my BMI suggests I should lose 4 pounds, but my actual body fat percentage is where I want it to be).

Take the test yourself and let me know how you scored in the comments section!

 

Calcium Channel Blockers Increase Heart Failure Risk

by

ANOTHER DRUG FOR HIGH BLOOD PRESSURE INCREASES RISK OF DEATH??

Seriously.  First we see a meta analysis several years back of 95,000 patients on beta blockers that had increased risk of diabetes and stroke and no lowered risk of death.  Now, in a review of almost 157,000 patients (that’s a big review, by the way) we see another large class of drugs used to treat HTN that actually increase the risk of heart failure18% higher risk), especially in diabetics (a substantial 71% increased risk)??  These are the times that I think I read TOO much medical literature.  The reality is, with drugs, it is a race to see whether side effects kill you before the disease you’re trying to prevent does.

The bottom line?  Lifestyle is the ONLY answer.  So many times I hear patients tell me that their blood pressure is “controlled.”  This is a false sense of security because the “numbers” look better.  Rarely is their risk truly reduced without making the right lifestyle choices.

Read More

Blood Pressure and Brain Shrinkage in Diabetes; My Numbers are “Under Control”

by

Man do I hate that phrase, yet I hear it all the time. Mainstream medicine has created a false sense of safety that is merely an illusion.

I have certainly talked about the use of surrogate end markers in previous articles, but I’ll refresh your memory here. A surrogate end marker is a value (like blood pressure, cholesterol or HbA1c) that we use in clinical studies of drugs instead of the REAL outcome we want to know about. No one cares what his or her cholesterol is; he or she just doesn’t want to have a heart attack. No one cares what his or her blood pressure is; he or she just doesn’t want to have a stroke.

Rather than wait years and years and years to see if a drug designed to lower the risk of a heart attack (statins) or lower the risk of stroke (blood pressure meds), clinical studies are designed to look for these surrogate end marker values rather than the end outcome. So, if a drug lowers cholesterol we all hoop and holler and pat each other on the back and SAY we’ve lowered the rates of heart attacks. It’s not until years and years later that the studies come out looking at the real outcome we wanted and we all realize our folly at thinking we were protected.

It happens again and again and again. Which, of course, brings us to this particular study. In it, researchers looked at a group of 2977 participants to see if certain medications could protect the brain and keep it from shrinking over time, which is generally something we all want to avoid. They were then put into two groups:

  1. Systolic blood pressure goal of less than 120 or less than 140 mm Hg (i.e. using more medication).
  2. Using a fibrate (to lower triglycerides) vs placebo in patients with low-density lipoprotein cholesterol levels less than 100 mg/dL (n = 1538).

Sounds good. Drive that blood pressure down with more medications because lower is better. Same thing with lipids—drive them down to protect the brain.

Unfortunately, drug researchers seem to have short memory spans. Several years ago, the ACCORD trial used intensive lowering of HbA1c with insulin in an attempt to lower the rates of heart attacks. The trial was stopped early because the rates of heart attacks were doubled in those using more medications.

With the ACCORD trial as a lesson, here’s what the researchers found after 40 months:

  • There was no difference in cognitive function in either group getting more drugs.
  • However, brain volume had shrunk 4.4% more in the group getting more drugs for blood pressure.
  • Fibrate therapy had no effect on brain volume.

I don’t know about you, but given a choice between a bigger brain and a smaller one, I’m pretty sure I’d choose the larger one, which, in this case, means less medication. This is not to say that lowering your blood pressure naturally with lifestyle changes is a bad idea—quite the opposite. I can guarantee that if you make the right choices for your blood pressure your brain will thank you. But using medications to achieve that same outcome will have disastrous outcomes.

Medications have never been, or never will be, the answer. Your numbers are never “under control;” rather, your numbers are being artificially lowered to give you the impression that something positive is being done for your health.

Lawsuits Allege Conspiracy in Ritalin Use – (10-19-00)

by

Lawsuits Allege Conspiracy in Ritalin Use

There is no question that our children are over-medicated, but this lawsuit raises some very important questions as to the “creation” of a new behavioural disorder.

(article) Novartis AG is denying allegations that the company conspired with the American Psychiatric Association to create the disease known as attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) in order to fuel the market for its product Ritalin. The charges against the Swiss drugmaker were leveled in class action lawsuits filed in California and New Jersey on Wednesday. The complaint alleges that Ciba-Geigy Corp., now part of Novartis, colluded with the American Psychiatric Association to create and promote the diagnoses of attention deficit disorder (ADD) and ADHD in an effort to boost Ritalin sales. As a result, it says, ADD was first listed in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders in 1980, while ADHD was recognized in 1987.

Blood Lead, BP, and Hypertension – (03-31-03)

by

Blood Lead, BP, and Hypertension.

Heavy metals are widely overlooked by mainstream medicine despite heavy research into their affects on human health. Here we see links with hypertension. Of additional note on BP is cadmium (found mainly in cigarette smoke) which damages the kidneys and can lead to hypertension.

JAMA — Abstracts: Nash et al. 289 (12): 1523

Click here for more information.

How Compliant are You with Your Heart Meds?

by

Let’s face it.  The general public sucks at taking their meds the way they are supposed to.  But it’s still going to help, right?

Studies have shown that upwards of 75% of patients taking medications are not fully compliant.  In other words, the vast majority of medicated patients do not take drugs as prescribed.

With this in mind, understand that trials on medications are done under Ivory Tower-like conditions.  And the results on trials for a large chunk of available medications show a paltry benefit at best (anti-depressants, high blood medications and cholesterol medications are just a few examples).  We can extrapolate that, if the benefits of drugs like those mentioned above are a  hair above non-existent with high compliance, that with low compliance the chance that benefits of the drug will outshine side effects becomes akin to finding the winning Powerball ticket walking through a parking lot.

Just in case you think I’m being dramatic (ok…so maybe the Powerball comment was a wee bit dramatic–but not by much), I present this particular study.  In it, researchers looked at several different drugs, the statins or blood pressure medications (beta-blocker, ACE inhibitor or ARB), to see what the benefits of the drugs looked like if someone was compliant versus non-complaint.   High compliance was considered to be someone taking his or her drug at least 80% of the time they were supposed to be.  Here’s what they found:

  1. Highly compliant patients were 19-36% less likely to have a heart attack or need a heart stent procedure.
  2. Everyone else who did not take the meds as prescribed basically had no benefit.
  3. Even those who were partially adherent had no reduction in heart attacks or cardiac procedures.

This means that, with statins (my favorite class of drugs) or the most commonly used blood pressure medications, only a small percentage of those patients taking them will ever see a benefit.  Even if they do see a benefit, many times that benefit is small.  None of this takes into account the long list of side effects from these classes of drugs.

THIS is what we call “medicine” today.

 

Are You Following a Low Sodium Diet?

by

For quite a few years, the general consensus to lower risk of heart disease and hypertension was to stick with a low salt diet. Hopefully you didn’t follow buy into the dogma.

I’m not entirely sure where the low sodium hogwash started, but I know why it survived for so long. Mainly because no one got hurt financially. All the large food companies didn’t have to change anything—they just came up with low sodium products. Low sodium soups. Low sodium frozen entrees. Low sodium diet sodas.

Had we looked at the big picture, what we would have had to admit was that it wasn’t the sodium, it was processed foods high in sodium. Refined carbohydrates, oils high in omega 6 fatty acids, hydrogenated oils and dilapidated fruits and vegetables make up the bulk of most processed foods. And when we eat these foods, we get sick. No big shocker there. But it was so easy to blame this on the sodium levels because then the products did not need to change, just the sodium levels.

As a result of this, there became a very large national campaign to lower sodium intake and the entire medical profession bought into it hook line and sinker. I have covered the demise of the sodium recommendation in a prior blog article that can be read by clicking here. But to summarize, maintaining a diet of less than 1500 mg sodium has no effect on heart disease rates in those with normal blood pressure, prehypertension or hypertension. But besides not having any real effect on the risk of heart disease (less than 5% of the population is sensitive to sodium, and even then only if they have an overall low quality diet), at least there wasn’t any harm done. Right?

Turns out that might not be exactly true. This particular review identifies some of the negative consequences of a low sodium diet. In particular:

  1. Worsening of prediabetes
  2. Worsening of serum lipids (cholesterol, triglycerides)
  3. Worsening of neurohormonal pathways, leading to higher risk of actually developing cardiometabolic disease as well as the severity of existing cardiac disease.
  4. An overall higher rate of cardiovascular and all-cause mortality.

Wow. Sounds like we put all our eggs into the wrong basket.

I’m not saying that we should go out of our way to try to take in 10,000 mg of sodium per day. But by avoiding processed foods we can go a long way towards not having to worry about your sodium intake. Awareness is key.  As an example, a Mongolian grill near my house is a great option for eating healthy, but some of the sauces can have 3,000 mg or more of sodium per ladle! If you’re not aware of this little factoid, you would think that you’ve made a good choice. Once you are aware, it’s easy to choose the other sauces that aren’t so high in sodium.

In summary, it’s not about reading the nutrition facts label for the sodium and carbohydrate count, it’s about scooting your eyes a little further down and reading through the ingredients instead. It should pass my “8-year old rule.” If the typical 8 year old child can’t read the ingredients, you probably shouldn’t be eating it.