I'm a preventive cardiologist here at the Cleveland
Clinic I'm also a medical director of cardiac rehabilitation it's gives me great
pleasure today to speak with you about natural ways to lower our blood pressure
you know when I see patients in clinic they always asking well
how can I try and avoid medicine as much as possible what can I do naturally to
lower my blood pressure and they come in with all kinds of ideas and things
they've read on the internet about lowering blood pressure does this
special supplement help etc the majority of them know they
don't really tend to lower blood pressure or at least there's not good data to
back it up however there is good data to back up a variety of lifestyle measures
that we can actually use to naturally lower blood pressure and they
actually become the cornerstone of hypertension management as I always say to my
patients 70% is lifestyle 30% is medications I can give you six seven eight
blood pressure medicines if you're not doing the lifestyle
components you're really not going to be effectively lowering
your blood pressure so these are generally things that people think about but we
have to be we have to be diligent and doing them the first one that we think
about is weight loss it's very clear from the most recent
hypertension guidelines and from a variety of data that weight loss helps lower
blood pressure the standard rule of thumb that we see is getting to your ideal
body weight lowers blood pressure by about six millimeters of mercury in
the studies that have looked at it however another rule of
thumb that we can use is for every kilogram that an individual loses their blood
pressure is decreased by one millimeter of mercury so definitely powerful stuff
something to consider when you're getting on the scale in the
morning other things that we think about are nutritional or dietary patterns the
most well-studied natural intervention for blood pressure is introduction or the
the use of a - diet now the - diet is an acronym it stands for
Dietary Approaches to stopping hypertension and the specifics
are that it's essentially a well-balanced of moderation.
plenty of fruits and
vegetables it tends to more more towards a Mediterranean dietary pattern but
it's also low-sodium and that really brings us to the next
component that I would say from a lifestyle perspective is the most important
part of blood pressure management and that's making sure that an individual is
on a low-sodium diet now there's different levels of sodium out there that
different organizations suggest as the maximum of sodium during
a day the American Heart Association recommends 1500 milligrams of sodium I tend
to think that's a little bit too low we know that people can generally get away
with a maximum of 2,300 milligrams of sodium throughout the
day the difference in blood pressure between 1500 milligrams a day and 2,300
milligrams a day is only about two or three millimeters of mercury so it's
important to understand that and really try and stay below 2,300 2,300
milligrams of sodium throughout the day it's also important to
understand that when I say sodium I'm talking about salt for those of you that
aren't aware of that and that all salt is created equal so sea salt is the same
as table salt is the same as Himalayan salt is the same same as you
know the pink salts which I think is Himalayan salt as well but they all
increase blood pressure so it's very important when they look at look back when
they were look doing the initial Studies on sodium intake and blood
pressure low sodium diet was worth about one and a half to two
blood pressure medicines.
so really powerful natural way to lower one's blood
pressure on that line of electrolytes we also really focus on potassium intake
in individuals with hypertension and it's the inverse of sodium
so too much sodium intake increases blood pressure too little potassium intake
or too low of potassium values also increase blood pressure so it's important to
understand that and make sure that your diet is replete with
potassium now of course if someone has other compelling for a
low potassium diet like chronic kidney disease which means our our bodies
ultimately hold on to potassium a little bit more than the normal individual but
in the person with normal kidneys it's important that we're having plenty
of fruits and vegetables and making sure our potassium levels are normal when we
check the other natural things that we think about lowering blood pressure are
physical activity it's very important and there's a couple different types
than I oftentimes speak to my patients about the first is moderate aerobic
physical activity,
so when I may say moderate intensity aerobic physical activity
that essentially means a brisk walk or a light jog and the guideline
recommendations suggest at least 150 minutes of
moderate intensity physical activity a week now we know individuals do better
from a cardiovascular perspective the more that they do but really at least a
minimum of a hundred and fifty is how we should be or how much we
should be trying to get on a weekly basis once you've
achieved that amount of aerobic physical activity another nice addition and
another way to lower blood pressure is with light resistance activities so some
light weights some light bands these can be very effective at lowering
blood pressure and it doesn't have to be five six times a week really the sweet
spot for cardiovascular disease is two to three times a week 20 to 30 minutes
and it's important because we know that as individuals age we
actually have to do more physical activity every year just to
keep the muscle mass we have and this can be really helpful in terms of lowering
blood pressure finally one of the things that we oftentimes think about in terms
of elevating blood pressure is alcohol intake so the most
recent blood pressure guidelines recommend no more than one drink per day for
women and no more than two alcoholic drinks per day permanent for men to
maintain normal blood pressures so those are just a few ways that we can
naturally lower our blood pressure and try and avoid taking
medicines as much as possible thanks very much,
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