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Posts tagged ‘hypertension’

Bad BP! Correct It Now!

Blood pressure

Image by williamhartz via Flickr

Bad BP! I’m not talking about the company that spilled all this precious oil in the Gulf, although I should be talking about this topic in the future. I’m talking primarily about extremes in blood pressure. That’s high blood pressure as well as low blood pressure. High blood pressure is not an illness or disease although if you talk to other people, they’ll tell you it’s an illness that needs to be medicated. High blood pressure is usually a symptom of some underlying medical problem. Take care of that problem and your blood pressure goes down naturally or on it’s own. Hypertension (another name for high blood pressure), according to the medical literature, can be classified as either essential or secondary type. If you read their descriptions, it doesn’t make any sense at all. Essential hypertension, which comprises 90-95% of cases of hypertension, is said to be due to an idiopathic cause or “cause unknown”. In reality, there could be a lot of causes but these are not typically searched for in a typical practice. Secondary hypertension, on the other hand, could be due to overt underlying problems such as kidney, adrenal or metabolic dysfunction.  Most people end up on medications long-term anyway, whether they have essential or secondary hypertension. Therefore, the distinction between these two types of hypertension is useless, to put it bluntly. Other causes of high blood pressure that aren’t normally addressed include nutritional deficiencies (potassium and magnesium), heavy metal toxicity (lead and mercury), stress (physical, mental, emotional), and allergies (food, drug, chemicals). It’s easy to correct most of these issues. In other cases, treatments such as chelation therapy for heavy metal toxicity and LDA (low dose antigen) therapy for allergies, may be warranted. Medications do have their place in the treatment of high blood pressure but I emphasize an integrative approach to any type of health challenge. One that involves the use of food, dietary supplements, and lifestyle changes such as moderate exercise, stress reduction and optimal sleep.

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Smart Fat Loss

My Weight Loss Coach

Image via Wikipedia

What is smart fat loss? Fat loss is the process of losing excess body fat. It is a better term to use (rather than weight loss) because weight loss could be unhealthy esp. if a person is losing muscle mass rather than excess body fat. I think that relying on just 1 pill alone for weight loss is “the opposite of smart.” There are a lot of factors that contribute to obesity. A smart weight management program should look into all these issues. What I don’t comprehend is how drugs used for treating obesity are being reserved for those who are obese (BMI greater than 30) or those who have co-morbid conditions such as hypertension or diabetes. People with complex medical problems don’t need another drug to complicate their life further. In fact, an article on CNN dares to ask the question: “Three New Weight Loss Drugs: Will They Work?” Apparently, prescription weight loss remedies have a spotty history. The article stated that, “some have proved to have a relatively modest effect, while others have been downright dangerous.” A lot of the potential danger lies in the fact that people who take these drugs use it for the long term. Without making dietary and lifestyle changes, it’s bound to create further problems down the road. Anyway, for those who have weight issues, some dietary changes that one could easily incorporate are: eliminating refined carbs, eliminating grains altogether (for some people), staying away from “low-fat” meals (they’re usually laden with sugar; sugar turns into fat; and fat is what tells our satiety centers that we’re full), eating naturally as possible (staying away from foods that have artificial colorings, flavorings or preservatives, although “natural” may not mean a thing anymore), drinking pure water (more on fluoride issues later), chewing our food well and eating like the French (slow food instead of “inhaling” food like some people who eat on the go do). I’ll discuss about dietary supplements, exercise and perhaps, correcting hormonal imbalances to achieve weight loss in future blog entries. In the meantime, let the fat loss begin….

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