Lower Blood Pressure Naturally

Have we taken a wrong turn to lower blood pressure through our obsession with low-fat/no-fat diets and foods?

In my last post I discussed how health myths about red meat and animal fat may actually be doing our heart, blood pressure and overall health more harm than good. Now it seems that red meat may be just one casualty in a much bigger and much more dangerous battle…

It turns out that our misguided fear of dietary fat in general may actually be increasing our risk of high blood pressure and heart disease!

For most of our lives so-called health and lifestyle experts have subjected us to a relentless demonization of dietary fats and cholesterol, nutrients that are found naturally in countless foods. The worst abuse has been reserved for saturated animal fats such as those found in red meat and dairy foods.

In fact, dietary fat has long been suspected of playing a major role in high blood pressure. The DASH diet (Dietary Approaches To Stop Hypertension), for example, prescribes restricted consumption of red meat and use of low-fat or non-fat dairy products as an effective strategy for lowering blood pressure.

Other sources are far more fanatical in their anti-fat agendas. Crusading health “advice” has generated such irrational levels of fat-phobia that many people refuse to touch red meat at all and stridently avoid all but non-fat dairy products.

In response to changing market demands, meat producers have largely managed to “breed out” the fat in their products. The extremely lean meat that results is assumed to be healthier (an assumption that serves to justify sacrificing much of the meat’s natural flavor that is normally provided by its fat).

Anti-fat hysteria has affected the dairy industry even more perversely with many people having swapped natural, nutrient-rich milk for less nutritious low-fat products or even more aneamic non-fat versions.

Then there are the countless low-fat and non-fat processed foods designed by food manufacturers to cash in on the health craze. Worst of all are the fat substitutes used to replace not just the taste but also the look and texture of natural fats in foods.

And it’s not just animal fats that have suffered; even vegetable fats have met with suspicion. At the height of the anti-fat hysteria some TV chefs even took to teaching how to saute chicken and other meats in… water!

But can we thank our new-found food puritanism for plunging levels of high blood pressure and heart disease?

Sadly, no. You may imagine that sacrificing the earthy and natural pleasures of traditional varieties of red meat, dairy and other foods is a fair trade for lower blood pressure and better health… but the facts fail to bear this out. Most indicators show that – despite the deluge of fat-free food products of the last 30 years - rates of high blood pressure and heart disease remain stubbornly high while obesity increases at epidemic rates.

So what’s gone wrong? Are people still consuming too much fat (are they not frightened enough yet?) Or do the facts demand a different interpretation of our beliefs about food and health?

The facts that are emerging show that fats and cholesterol – far from being killers – are “essential to life”. According to a new study by the Cambridge Nutrition Clinic in the U.K.:

Fats and cholesterol help create and protect the white blood cells and millions of other cells that repair the wall linings when damaged.

‘The so-called ‘bad’ type of cholesterol, LDL, is specifically sent to the wound by the liver and this is why patients with heart disease are seen to have high levels in their body.

Unfortunately, because LDL is found at the ‘crime scene’, the cholesterol is mistakenly blamed for the heart condition when in fact it is nature’s way of trying to combat it.

We’ve been subjected to relentless medical advice demonising natural fats and cholesterol but they are in fact essential to life.

Extensive reviews of the available studies have shown me that the myth of heart disease being down to fat is wrong.

Natasha Campbell-McBride, M.D.
Cambridge Nutrition Clinic

So if fat that clogs up arteries is not the demon behind, first, high blood pressure and then heart disease… what is?

Maybe high blood acidity, if a new theory that’s rapidly gaining recognition is correct. But that’s another article…

Unfortunately, theories about the causes of high blood pressure and heart disease are not just matters for debate by medical scientists; wrong beliefs actually do us harm. Research suggests that modern diets absurdly low in fat weaken our immune systems and hinder the body’s natural healing mechanisms.

The ultimate irony is that a lack of essential fats and cholesterol may allow damage in blood vessels to reach critical levels, which can lead to hypertension, heart attack, stroke and organ failure.

A balanced diet for lower blood pressure…

It’s been said many times but it’s still worth repeating: there are no bad foods! A healthy diet is a balance of natural foods in their whole and natural state.

Healthy blood pressure (which often reflects your general state of health) is especially dependent on a natural balance of minerals and other essential nutrients, a balance occurring naturally in a varied diet of real food.

Excessive consumption of processed foods, food substitutes and fake foods of all types (including many so-called “healthy options”) is unbalanced, unnatural and unhealthy.