LifeCare Chiropractic

The Best Chiropractic Care in Mesa, Arizona

high systolic blood pressure

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.

Side Effects of Blood Pressure Medication-Women Better Read This

by

Calcium Channel Blockers (think “dipine” or “amil” names) are common blood pressure medications.  Much like every drug, this class comes with its list of side effects, but I’ll bet you didn’t know this was on the list.

Every drug comes with side effects.  That’s the price we pay to mess with physiology the way Mother Nature intended (which is what all drugs do–they mess with the way your body is supposed to be working).  The game we play is to make sure the side effects are not as dangerous as the disease state that is being treated.  Seems pretty simple, right?

If only.

There are hundreds of different types of blood pressure medications and fall into several classes: diuretics, beta blockers, angiotensin converting enzyme inhibitors, calcium channel blockers and angiotensin II receptor blockers.  And, as mentioned, they all have side effects.  Some of them, like the beta blockers, I can’t even figure out why we’re still using them for blood pressure since they clearly lead to diabetes and stroke.  I’ve covered many of the known side effects of all these classes of drugs in a previous blog article that can be read by clicking here.

However, there is a new side effect identified in this particular article that should make every women sit up and take notice.

In a well designed study, researchers looked at the relationship between calcium channel blocker use and breast cancer.  This association was first identified in 1996, but lost any momentum within a few years, to be picked up some 17 years later by this group.  Here’s the details:

  1. There were 2763 women in the study, 880 of them with invasive ductal breast cancer, 1027 with invasive lobular breast cancer, and 856 with no cancer for controls.
  2. Use of calcium-channel blockers for 10 or more years increased risk of ductal breast cancer 240% and lobular breast cancer 260%.
  3. The risk was the same for all types of calcium-channel blockers  used.

While this study does not prove that this blood pressure medication contributed to the breasts cancers, it certainly doesn’t look good.  But here’s the kicker–the vast majority of prescriptions written for all blood pressure medications have been shown to be worthless for someone with stage 1 hypertension (systolic below 160 or diastolic below 99), essentially not having any effect on someone’s risk of heart attack, stroke or overall risk of death.

If a drug does nothing for the patient, then ANY side effects of that drug are unacceptable.  If that particular side effect is an increased risk of breast cancer from a blood pressure medication you didn’t need in the first place, I’m not sure there’s a word to describe this.

High Blood Pressure Medication–Is Your Doctor Still Prescribing It?

by

Blood pressure medication use below 160/100 is worthless.  While nothing in medical research is set in stone, some things are close.

A review done by the Cochrane Collaboration in 2012, a worldwide medical research think-tank, found that there was no evidence that drug treatment of high blood pressure for systolic below 160 and diastolic below 100 lowered the rates of heart attacks, strokes or death.  That’s not to say that drugs for high blood pressure numbers like these does not actually work, just that there is no medical evidence to suggest that it does.

And let’s face it.  This is a LOT of money we’re talking about here.  Seemingly everyone is on blood pressure medications these days.  If the drug companies had research to prove that their drugs worked, the Cochrane Collaboration review would’ve found it.  I’m pretty sure there never will be research to show that medical management of high blood pressure below 160 and 100 works.

But what does this mean to a medical system that is so massively entrenched in dogma that I’m surprised they are not still doing bloodletting?

Apparently nothing.  Personally, I have yet to see a patient come in who’s doctor recently took them off of blood pressure medications.  This would, however, be a welcome sign that mainstream medical doctors actually read medical literature.  This is the heart of this short commentary basically asking the same questions.

The continued use of blood pressure medications beyond today would be fine if they were (a) free and (b) free of side effects.  Neither is true.

The cost to our healthcare system is monstrous and the list of side effects very long and can be reviewed in a previous blog article on this topic that can be read by clicking here.  Most notably, however, is the increased risk of stroke and diabetes from beta blockers.

What does all of this mean?  It means that, much like everything else, lifestyle is the only answer.  Using lifestyle to lower your blood pressure WILL lead to lowered rates of heart disease, stroke and death.  You can read my full recommendations in my Blood Pressure eBook that can be found by clicking here.

In the meantime, this is a great way to tell if your doctor is keeping up with the current medical literature as it relates to being the best advocate for your health.  If he or she is not doing this, maybe it’s time to find a new one.