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.

Killer Inputs

How many of you are seriously health conscious? Forget about health. Do you really care about the foods you take daily? Maybe, that sounds like a difficult proposition for people in a hustle-bustle life. When you are hungry, you don't look for the protocols, and what comes your way, well justifies your crave for foods. Right. Pause. Think for a moment. It's not all about delectably packaged junk foods from branded companies, there are many delicious local food items that could have charmed you for long, all for sumptuously satisfying your epicurean taste buds, would have a complete bearing on your health. Remember, food items rich in fat, sugar and salt are directly associated with a higher chance occurrence of many modern health problems be it heart disease, diabetes, cancer, high blood pressure, stroke, obesity, or thyroid. And the explosive fact that may give you a shocker is the higher sugar, salt, and fat components in food, the more your affinity for eating. And the vicious circle of eating more and getting inflicted with killer diseases starts with the “dangerous trios” - sugar, salt, and fat.

As chefs emphasize sugar, salt, and fat make a food unbelievably palatable. These basic three ingredients stimulate neurons, which in turn they trigger the release dopamine, a chemical that influences your craving for foods. Like a perfect foreplay that stimulates you to reach at the highest orgasmic level, a judicious combination of sugar, salt, and fat drives you towards an “epicurean bliss point”. From there your flight for indulgence takes off. Perhaps, this secret is known to the barons of food business. Restaurants, multinational fast-food companies, and even your local dhabas, they all create magic around this “epicurean bliss point”. A judicious mix of sugar, salt, and fat is loaded into the royal dishes you often hanker everyday. That's not just the whole truth, the more you take such foods, an unfailing addiction level grows in your mind, and whenever you come across such food items, your brain triggers an unusual high appetite for that food.

Whether it's a packet of potato chips, a piece of hamburger, or a bottle of soft drink, the marvel of “modern food engineering” has elevated the epicurean level. What flavor would delight customers is not a prerogative of cook, rather it's a complex food designing process that stems from the “blissful stimulation” - a pleasurable experience felt when layers of food ingredients melt over your taste buds, and you desire more. And this influences hypereating syndrome, a psychological condition which is difficult to avoid once generated.

So, the consequences are hitting hard on our face. The people across the globe, especially in western countries like US and UK, are getting fatter and fast catching up the modern ailments such as obesity, high blood pressure, heart stroke, and specific type of cancer. Cancer researchers at the World Cancer Research Fund (WCRF) claim that a reduction in the intake of sugar, salt and fat would certainly help decrease the growth rate of disease. Similarly, a high intake of salt and fat is directly related to to occurrence of high blood pressure. Patients with high blood pressure are 300 percent likely to have a stroke than people with normal blood pressure. Again, saturated fat, popularly known as raising “bad cholesterol” is mostly found in food items such as butter, cream, cheese, cakes, biscuits, pies, pastries, and chocolates increases the risk of heart disease.

Well, as the saying goes “prevention is better that cure”, it's now your turn how you manage your life and lead a healthy lifestyle. Remember, a balanced intake of killer inputs (sugar, salt, and fat), as defined as GDA (Guideline Daily Allowance) would help you reduce the chance of getting inflicted with modern diseases. A GDA of 90 g of sugar, 6 gram of salt, and 70 gram of fat are advised for an adult. Beyond that you have the freedom of eating more healthy fats found in foods such as nuts, olive oil, and avocado. Moreover, going for sweets, you can always bank on honey, dates, and other fruits. And yes, a caution for salt, the less the healthier.