Lower Blood Pressure Naturally

High blood pressure, heart disease, stroke, diabetes, premature death from any or all of the above…

Established health doctrine on obesity: lower blood pressure is just a few pounds away.

Are you terrorized by that spare tire around your gut?

Do you squirm upon hearing yet another ”news” report on the dire health consequences of your excess weight?

Just imagine the lower blood pressure, healthier heart and longer life you could achieve by just losing a few pounds… 

Aren’t you convinced that fat is the root of all disease?

If so, you’re not alone. The media constantly bombards us with half-baked health hypotheses and new “findings” from medical research into obesity. The evidence linking it to hypertension and heart disease seems undeniable. Yet, as with so many things, the truth is not that simple…

First of all, not all studies are equal. One good one is worth a hundred mediocre ones. And, of course, bad studies are worth nothing, yet these are the ones that are often behind many dramatic new “findings” we hear about in the media.

Blood pressure by computer model…

There are many factors that distinguish a good study from a bad one. Results from real, living people are obviously quality criteria. Even testing on animals (regardless of your position on this practice) can often produce good data. But researchers in all fields increasingly rely on computer models. They’re relatively cheap and fast: two very good reasons in a fast-food media world that demands constant satiation by press release, and damn the quality.

Computer models can be flawed when predicting the outcomes of complex systems like blood pressure.

We’ve seen how controversial computer modeling can be when applied to complex systems like the climate and global warming; do you imagine that blood pressure and other aspects of human physiology are any simpler?

People who were once overweight are sometimes puzzled and disappointed to find that their weight loss did not result in lower blood pressure. And people with high blood pressure but “normal” weight could be frustrated on hearing about the number of obese people with healthy blood pressure!

Would you trust a computer to project your blood pressure based on different weight levels…

(not to mention the countless other lifestyle, genetic and physiological factors that interplay in determining your blood pressure?)

Another problem in public health pronouncements is not about quality but emphasis…

In general, news that does not support the prevailing public health agenda is either minimized or – more commonly – ignored altogether. So a study showing no link between being overweight and a higher incidence of high blood pressure, heart disease and many other conditions allegedly linked to obesity gets very little attention in the press.

In fact, I recently wrote about exactly such a study in my article “Struggling To Lose Weight For Lower Blood Pressure?”. The study, published in the International Journal of Obesity, looked at 20,000 real people (not computer models) and found no connection between weight and significant health problems based on medications prescribed.

Because medications to reduce blood pressure are among the top ten as well as the most readily of all drugs prescribed you would have to conclude that the obese would show a greater number of prescriptions for these drugs… assuming they experience a greater incidence of high blood pressure, that is.

Of course more study is needed because medications prescribed is not the only determinant of health problems and no single study is ever conclusive. However, most experts agree that this finding is very significant indeed and deserves widespread distribution and discussion; yet few people have even heard of it. We only hear the factoids that further the hysteria surrounding weight issues.

Health prejudices can easily become established medical doctrine that refuses to tolerate any contrary evidence. For example, there is a high-quality body of research casting doubt on the entire principle of heart disease as caused by saturated fat and “bad” cholesterol. Again, no single piece of evidence is conclusive but the public needs to be informed that there is a legitimate contrary view.

They should also know that the dispensors of public health doctrine are not working with absolute truth, regardless of how convinced they are of their facts.

There are probably very few people who actually enjoy being fat. Obesity certainly has social and practical disadvantages. And it may well be linked to certain health conditions after all… although these links are nowhere near as strong, pervasive and conclusive as relentless public health reports would have us believe.

The link between stress and hypertension, however, is indisputable. And some health experts are beginning to realize that the stress and anxiety of worrying over a few extra pounds or even a spare tire is doing greater damage to our health than any link – whether real or projected – between excess weight and high blood pressure.

In part II of “The Obesity Link to High Blood Pressure” I will reveal how the medical profession along with the drugs industry have widened their scope from the obviously obese to the millions more merely overweight or carrying that notorious “spare tire”.

And in the same way they’ve trapped millions more in the terror of high blood pressure by dropping the entry requirements, thus creating a colossal amount of new patients and a new drugs category (that of pre-hypertension) at the same time and virtually overnight.