High Blood Pressure: Natural Cure

In my previous blog titled The Silent Killer I attempted to touch upon the alarming numbers on the state of hypertension across the globe as a silent killer. Well, I thought that's not quite enough to serve the purpose. For any patient, or for a person at the brink of being afflicted, what's more pertinent is to get relief anyhow.

Before delving deeper into controlling the disease, let's first understand how you can read the symptoms of the disease. The first symptom of hypertension may appear as a pain at the back of the head and neck on waking in the morning, which normally disappears after sometime. Some other symptoms are dizziness, pain in the chest, frequent urination, nervous tension, fatigue, and difficulty in breathing. It's not uncommon that hypertension symptoms may not always be apparent, but most people don't even notice the symptoms at all. This triggers much larger problem for those patients as they feel they are quite healthy and don't need to visit a doctor.

Causes of High Blood Pressure

In most cases, the causes of high blood pressure remain unknown, but there are certain conditions that could contribute to the risk of developing high blood pressure. While not all of these factors are controllable, awareness about them makes you conscious of the existence of the risk of high blood pressure.

Age: One of the biggest risk factors for high blood pressure levels, age triggers a direct impact on the the risk of developing high blood pressure. With growing age people become accustomed to certain habits and in consequence the stress level increases. Although in the past the lower age group segment hardly had any symptom of hypertension, with changing lifestyle, wrong food habits, younger adults are getting affected.

Food Habits: In today's world, when fast-food is a trend, the chance of getting afflicted with high blood pressure is imminent. Foods like red meats, junk foods, fried or refined foods, and other food items with high fat, sugar and salt content become a major contributor to hypertension.

Stress: Stress has a direct impact on the high blood pressure cannot be understated. In modern society, where “work hard, party harder” is the tagline, stress can't be weeded out. Both emotional and physical stress plays a larger role in taking the toll.

Heredity: This is a specific factor that cannot be controlled and people with a family background of high blood pressure are definitive to developing the disease.

Obesity: Obesity is one of the biggest risk factors for developing high blood pressure. Obesity results from wrong food habits. For anyone who is overweight should try to reduce weight through healthy methods like dieting and working out.

Alcoholism: Excessive alcohol consumption is a contributing factor to increasing blood pressure levels.

Wrong Medications: Normally, women who take contraceptive pills on a regular basis are prone to the risk of developing high blood pressure. Certain medications like diet pills can also contribute to the problem.

Natural Remedies

Apart from taking medicines as prescribed by doctors, the patients can also try on certain home remedies those have proven helpful in reducing the high blood pressure.

Garlic: According to some scientific observations, garlic can act as an effective means of lowering blood pressure. Garlic has a blood thinning characteristic, so it reduces spasms of the small arteries. It may be taken as raw cloves of one or two a day.

Indian Gooseberry: Indian gooseberry is a good remedy for high blood pressure. A tablespoon fresh Indian gooseberry juice mixed with equal amount of honey can be taken in the morning.

Lemon: Lemon is a great food to control high blood pressure. Being rich in vitamin C, this prevents capillary fragility.

Grapefruit: Grapefruit is also useful in preventing high blood pressure.

Watermelon: Watermelon is another safeguard against hypertension. The watermelon seeds which are rich in potassium have a definite action in dilating the blood vessels, which results in lowering the blood pressure.

Parsley: Parsley is quite useful in reducing high blood pressure. It contains elements that help maintain the blood vessels and keep the arterial system healthy. It can be taken as a beverage by simmering 20 gm of fresh parsley leaves gently in 250 ml of water for a few minutes.

Vegetable Juice: Raw vegetable juices, especially carrot and spinach juices, taken separately or in combination, are also beneficial in the treatment of high blood pressure.

Flaxseeds: Flaxseeds are very rich in fiber and effective in lowering LDL cholesterol and preserving HDL cholesterol. Flaxseeds should be consumed regularly along with soups, cereals and yogurt in order to reduce high blood pressure.