OFTEN CALLED THE SILENT KILLER THIS SINGLE DISORDER CAN TAKE YOU INEVITABLY TO YOUR END VIA STROKE, HEART ATTACK, MEMORY LOSS, KIDNEY DISEASE, AND OTHER PROBLEMS
CATEGORY: 3: Blockage (https://lynncapehartwellness.com/2013/09/01/blog-30-essay-2-the-seven-categories-of-illness/)
RECOMMENDED SUPPLEMENT: Lecithin
A healthy diet is one way to control blood pressure naturally.
You have a spiritual partnership with your body and a literal one as well. You need each other. Your body needs you to feed and care for it. And it is all that stands between you and the eternal darkness. Your earthly plans mean nothing if your body is not well enough to carry them out.
Usually, when your body has a problem it will send you a signal, a warning, a cry for help, known as a symptom. Symptoms are important and should never be ignored. Symptoms are your body’s early warning system, a request for assistance and materials. It’s telling you something is wrong, and it needs your help to fix it. There might be a sharp pain or nagging cough, an ear ringing or finger numbness, a problem not sleeping or a tendency to fall down. Maybe something so subtle as just not feeling like yourself. But something. In retrospect, there is always some sign.
High blood pressure is different. It’s a “gateway” disease that leads to so many others. It is the quiet killer, the thief in the night come to steal your existence. It has no symptoms, until you’re being rushed through a brightly-lit corridor flat on a gurney. Then you know.
WHAT IS BLOOD PRESSURE
Blood pressure is directly connected to heart activity. It is a way of measuring how hard the heart is working to circulate blood. Much the way a speedometer measures how fast a car is going. In both cases there is a safe normal and the higher the number the more danger invited.
The heart does its job through a pump action. Each beat moves blood along 100,000 miles of arterial pathways made up of all the arteries, veins, and capillaries in one adult body (about 60,000 miles for a child). This system feeds blood, and therefore nutrition, to every location. It also carries away life threatening toxins.
The force of blood against an arterial wall indicates how rigorous the heart is working to circulate blood. This force is referred to as blood pressure. A normal-range blood pressure indicates the heart is doing its job without working so hard that it’s hurting itself and other organs in the process.
CALCULATING BLOOD PRESSURE
To determine blood pressure two measurements are taken. The result is presented as a fraction:
The pressure exerted on the arterial wall during each heart beat is the systolic measurement. It is the top number.
The pressure exerted on the arterial wall between beats, when the heart is still and resting, is the diastolic measurement. It is the bottom number.
Ideal blood pressure for an adult ranges between 120/80 up to 140/90. Nowadays, we’re looking for a number even lower than 120/80. If you come in at 115/78, you will get a gold star. High blood pressure is indicated when this fraction is higher than the ideal range, and is known medically as hypertension.
TYPES OF HIGH BLOOD PRESSURE
Primary high blood pressure is the most common and develops slowly over years as a person ages.
Secondary high blood pressure is caused by another medical condition, like anxiety, or use of certain medications. It is temporary and usually returns to ideal once the cause is removed.
CAUSES OF HIGH BLOOD PRESSURE
There are countless reasons for a temporary spike in blood pressure. If you’re out partying with friends, shouting over the music, your pressure will go up. Having an argument, giving a speech, getting dumped or fired, putting away groceries, taking a test, wolfing down a meal, giggling, having sex, being chased by a bear … all can temporarily raise your pressure. But what if your blood pressure is high all the time?
SUSTAINED HIGH BLOOD PRESSURE
The two key reasons for sustained high blood pressure not caused by meds or another medical condition are both diet related, (a) osmosis connected to salt intake, and (b) organic plaque causing arterial blockages.
OSMOSIS
Osmosis is why your doctor and all trusted medical sources tell you to watch your salt intake. It’s due to the havoc osmosis creates in your bloodstream.
You can remember osmosis from biology class when they explained why soaking an injured swollen foot in heavily salted water or magnesium-rich Epsom salts would reduce swelling and discomfort.
Osmosis is the process whereby a solvent, like water, tends to pass through a membrane, like skin, always moving from an area of lesser concentration of an organic, like salt, into an area of greater concentration.
This natural movement of water is the body’s attempt to equalize the salt concentrations on both sides of the membrane. Osmosis is the body seeking an internal balance.
In the case of the foot: Swelling is caused by the foot tissue taking on water to cool an inflammation. The water in the foot, the area of lesser salt concentration, will flow through the membrane (skin) into the soaking water, which is the area of greater salt concentration. Voilà, the swelling disappears, because the extra water causing it has moved out of the foot and into the soaking liquid.
The same thing happens in the bloodstream as relates to blood pressure. High salt usage raises blood pressure due to osmosis. By how much is an individual assessment. When your bloodstream is carrying a lot of salt, osmosis draws water into the blood stream trying to equalize the salt on both sides of the vessel wall.
Any extra water in the bloodstream adds to the liquid load the heart has to move, forcing it to work harder, and raising your blood pressure to bring that about.
Osmosis is an especially thorny problem for people whose body’s are inclined to hold on to water due to another condition, like congestive heart failure. People with CHF can have swollen lower extremities where blood pools due to the heart’s inability to pump hard enough to move it back up. High blood pressure can lead to CHF, because HBP literally wears out the heart, ages it prematurely, makes it old before its time.
Exercising, even as little as 20 minutes two to three times a week, will strengthen your heart and lower your blood pressure.
PLAQUE
HBP causes the arterial walls to stretch outward. This stretching makes the walls susceptible to the growth of plaque. Plaque is the build up of fats, cholesterol, calcium, and other organic wastes on the walls of the arteries. (Interestingly, plaque only forms in arteries, but not in veins or capillaries, which are less susceptible to it.)
Plaque formation is also increased by a diet of fatty foods heavy in cholesterol and triglycerides. Even if you didn’t have HBP to begin with, eating these food would cause plaque on their own, and you’d end up with HBP anyway. Talk about a vicious circle.
The simple act of improving your diet with the addition of, say it with me, fresh fruits and vegetables, whole grains, fish, and lean meats, while also cutting back on foods eaten out of a bag, will help regulate and lower blood pressure. You also need a good emulsifier like lecithin to prevent and remove plaque formation in your arteries.
↘ Note: According to the CDC, 90% of Americans consume too much salt, equal to 50% more daily than is recommended. 40% have high cholesterol, and 33% have high triglyceride levels. The whole maze of illness connected to HBP is totally diet related and fully controllable. Only you decide what you eat.
HOW HIGH BLOOD PRESSURE DAMAGES OTHER ORGANS BESIDES YOUR HEART
HBP related damage doesn’t stop with the heart. It weakens and injures other organs as well, and through the same processes. All due to including too much salt and poor food choices in your diet.
ANEURISM (Bleeding) STROKE
If you take a balloon and continually blow it up past its ultimate stress point, certain spots will thin and finally burst.
HBP puts pressure on artery walls until they can no longer maintain the continual stretching, and they rupture like the balloon, causing an aneurism stroke. When this happens in the brain, it devastates an individual and her family. Nasty business, that, but it can also happen anywhere in the body and cause internal bleeding. It is always bad.
KIDNEY DAMAGE
If you have a truck moving food supplies to an isolated city, and the only road there from the warehouse becomes blocked with abandoned vehicles, then fewer and fewer supplies will be able to get through. The continued lack of foodstuffs will lead to malnutrition and possibly starvation in the waiting populace.
Like all organs, the kidneys have a considerable network of blood vessels supplying them. Over time HBP weakens blood vessel walls and makes the vessels more susceptible to the buildup of plaque. One follows the other—high blood pressure and plaque. The plaque blockage reduces the amount of blood and nutrition carried to the kidneys, making them work harder until they can fail entirely.
HEART DISEASE
By the same analogy as in kidney damage, the arteries surrounding the heart can become vulnerable to blood clots due, again, to the constant pressure exerted on the walls by HBP. In this environment plaque forms and grows faster, causing (a) atherosclerosis/hardening, and/or (b) a blockage that can turn into a blood clot or simply prevent enough blood from reaching the heart, until you have an attack or other episode.
MEMORY LOSS
Plaque in the brain that follows HBP is also responsible for memory loss and for the same reasons. If the arteries are blocked less blood will get through, starving brain cells die, and you face memory loss.
This same scenario can be presented for any number of body areas, because they all rely on sustenance being fed to them by blood vessels. All arteries are subject to plaque if you have HBP.
↘ Full disclosure: I am a salt hound. I’ve gone places and actually not eaten, asked the host to wrap it up so I could take it home, because they didn’t have any in the weekend rental. I’ve sometimes become nauseated trying to eat food with no salt. I certainly don’t enjoy it. I think my body needs the salt, because it doesn’t seem to affect my BP. My most recent reading was 109/71 with a pulse of 60. Maybe my high vitamin load prevents the process or maybe it’s a genetic aberration. Just remember, the rule is that too much salt presents a huge danger to your body and must be heavily regulated. You can use it, in fact you need it, but pay close attention to your intake. Too much salty food one day warrants the decision to eat less or none the next day. Look for a balance and you’ll be safe.
USING LECITHIN TO CONTROL HIGH BLOOD PRESSURE DUE TO PLAQUE & BLOCKED ARTERIES
Shortly after publishing Vitamin Remedies That Really Work!, I got a call from Tobi Knight, public affairs host on KIIS radio in Los Angeles. She wanted to interview me in person, not by phone, which is the usual way. Good thing, because we went out for a drink afterward and had a good conversation. I learned that her blood pressure was so high her doctor made her take a reading three times a day and then email the readings to him each day. This practice enabled me to track what effect Lecithin has on blood pressure on a daily basis.
I naturally suggested Lecithin and put her on a high dose of 6 softgels twice daily, plus 1 tablespoon of granules in a blender drink each morning.
The results surprised me.
Tobi was honest and admitted that she didn’t take Lecithin every single day, more like four days a week. But on the days that she did take it, her readings dropped into the normal range on that same day. Tobi’s pressure averaged as high as 180/120. With Lecithin the readings hovered around 120/80.
Until then I knew what Lecithin was capable of, but I assumed it would take a while, maybe weeks, to clean the arteries and bring down blood pressure. Apparently, that’s not always the case, and for some people Lecithin works to lower blood pressure the same day it’s taken!
Lecithin is an emulsifier. It keeps organic particles in suspension, as a mixture, by creating an environment where oil and water don’t separate. Lecithin is a natural substance extracted from soybean oil. It is known to be safe and has been used in our food supply since the early 1900’s. Take a look in your cabinets and refrigerator. Lecithin is used as an ingredient in countless foods and cosmetics because of its ability to emulsify, stabilize, thicken, and moisturize.
Without Lecithin, when you opened a box of biscuit mix, it wouldn’t come out in a nice powdery stream, but would plop into your bowl in funky clumps. Without Lecithin, your facial moisturizer wouldn’t be creamy and smooth when you stuck your finger in, but would show the oils coagulated and greasy. Without Lecithin, your mayonnaise would be a congealed mess, unspreadable. Likewise, your peanut butter. Lecithin is what keeps oils from separating from each other and other ingredients.
Lecithin’s ability to keep organic particles in suspension makes it a valuable food supplement. Is it such a huge leap from witnessing Lecithin’s known properties on other organic material outside our bodies to understanding that it can also do the same thing inside them? To me it’s a straight line of logic.
Lecithin does the same thing in your body as it does in food and cosmetics. It prevents organic particles from clumping together. Lecithin patrols your bloodstream, looking for an organic waste molecule to bind with. Once found, Lecithin prevents the waste molecule from joining with other similar waste molecules, by holding it in suspension until it can be safely eliminated from the body.
Lecithin will NOT cause chunks of plaque to rupture and fall off the artery wall into your bloodstream, threatening a blood clot and flow stoppage. Lecithin works on a molecular level, mincing away at the blockage, breaking off molecule-sized bits and escorting them through your blood stream (like a cop holding onto a criminal), keeping them in suspension (under arrest), and making sure they don’t team up with other criminals to commit more crimes (clump together and cause a blockage), until they can be disposed of safely.
Without enough Lecithin in your diet, oils, fats, and other organic compounds will accumulate, harden (they used to call it hardening of the arteries after all), and cause blockage disorders like heart disease and high blood pressure. With enough Lecithin, plaque and other organic wastes can’t settle on the walls of your arteries and drive up your blood pressure.
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↘ Definition: White Coat High Blood Pressure: If going to the doctor makes you nervous you’ll probably have a raised but artificially high blood pressure when they take a reading. It is the act of seeing the doctor that actually raises your blood pressure. There’s nothing to be done about it. They make a lot of people nervous. Just be sure to let your physician know that you have this tendency.
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| HIGH BLOOD PRESSURE Quick Glance Chart | |||||
| Supplement | Breakfast | Dinner | Brand | Strength | |
| Lecithin softgels | 4 softgels | 4 softgels | Puritan’s Pride Item #300 | 1200 mg | |
| Lecithin granules (optional) | 1 tbls in a blender drink | NA | Puritan’s Pride Item #1680 | NA | |
| One full tablespoon of granules is equal to six softgels. You can’t take too much. Feel free to use additional amounts liberally. | |||||
| Coenzyme Q10 | 1 capsule | NA | Jarrow Brand, bought at vitaminlife.com | 100 mg | |
| Beta Carotene
(they’re tiny) |
20 softgels | 20 softgels | Puritan’s Pride Item #1223 | 25,000 IU | |
| Vitamin D3 | 1.0 ml | 1.0 ml | Puritan’s Pride Item #30405 | 5,000 IU | |
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LET’S RECAP
If an ancient water bearer one day has his load increased by half, he will have to work harder by half to move the increased amount of liquid.
The same is true of your heart. If you’re eating incautiously, you’re giving your entire body a one-two punch of jeopardy. (a) Your salt intake causes extra water to be taken on by the blood stream, while (b) plaque caused by that same salt-related HBP narrows the blood vessels, giving the increased load less room to transport. And the heart pounds on, trying harder and harder to move the heavy load. Together, and over time, this double blow damages your body and shortens your life.
Don’t forget, even if you eat well—fresh fruits and vegetables, whole grains, fish, lean meats, and drink plenty of water—HBP will still cause plaque to form in your arteries if your salt intake is high.
WHAT TO DO
You don’t have to be a saint to be completely healthy, meaning you can cheat maybe 15 percent of the time and still be okay. What counts is what you do most of the time, the other 85 percent. If the bar is set too high and you don’t think you can make it, you may use that as an excuse to not try at all. So give yourself a break.
Specifically, it wouldn’t be the end of the world if you were to eat as much of whatever the hell you want once a week, as long as you’re taking lecithin to emulsify the carbs and grease, and, eating well the rest of the week. Knowing you can cut loose on your special day, guilt-free, might even help you behave on the other six days, since you will have something to look forward to on the seventh.
↘ Notes:
Remember, you’re not taking pills, but concentrated food supplements. This isn’t medicine. It’s nutrition. You need as much as it takes to get it done.
Additional recommended supplements are Co-Enzyme Q10, which strengthens the heart muscle. Beta Carotene fights inflammation that accompanies plaque buildup, and Vitamin D3 assists Beta Carotene in its functions. (If you can’t find D3, use Vitamin D.)
Puritan’s Pride Soya Lecithin contains a minimum of 61 percent phosphatides in each 1200 mg softgel. The value of a Lecithin product is determined by the percentage of phosphatides it contains, because they activate the fat emulsifying, plaque-removing process. I’ve rarely seen another brand that maintains this high level. You may use another brand, but make sure it conforms to these specifications, or it won’t work as described here.
Never take Lecithin softgels on an empty stomach as you may experience some stomach upset. Try to take it after you eat.
Lecithin granules are best used in blender drinks. You can also sprinkle them on salads, fresh fruit, and cereals. Be sure to consume it uncooked. You can use it in cooked recipes to improve texture and smoothness, but those amounts don’t count toward your daily maintenance dose.
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