Safest Way to Drop Blood Pressure to 120/80 – Delicious Tea Normalizes Blood Pressure (no, not green tea)
The tea I’m telling you about today is one of the most powerful natural treatments I’ve ever heard of to lower blood pressure.
In fact, two studies prove that it is just as effective as blood pressure medications, without any side effects.
What’s more, this tea is delicious. Although it’s not as well-known as many other teas, you should be able to get it at your local health foods store, wherever you are.
You might want to have a hibiscus bush in your garden—it’s not only decorative, but also useful! A new study has proven that a cup of hibiscus tea three times a day keeps blood pressure medications away.
In a study conducted in 2004 in Mexico, a team of scientists chose 75 patients with high blood pressure. Half were prescribed the blood pressure drug Captopril, while the other group drank hibiscus tea brewed from crushed, dried hibiscus flowers.
After four weeks, the blood pressure readings of all the patients were measured. The modest tea surprised the researchers by showing the same effect from drinking hibiscus and taking Captopril medication—both caused an 11% fall in blood pressure.
Another study compared hibiscus with a different blood pressure medication. Doctors examined 193 participants who participated in the study and were prescribed either 10 milligrams of Lisinopril or 250 milligrams of hibiscus in a capsule.
After four weeks, the medication had caused a 15% reduction, while the hibiscus capsules followed closely behind, with a 12% reduction in blood pressure.
Hibiscus has anti-diuretic properties; that is, it can help relax the arteries. It is also a natural ACE (angiotensin-converting enzyme) inhibitor. It slows down the release of hormones that cause blood vessels to constrict. Hibiscus is also good for improving immunity and has many natural antioxidants.
So, you can reap the benefits from hibiscus by either drinking the tea or taking capsules. Be aware, however, that just like medications, hibiscus is not a permanent cure. As soon as the study participants stopped using it daily, their blood pressure began to rise again.
Safest Way to Drop Blood Pressure to 120/80 – These Popular Blood Pressure Meds Cause Kidney Failure—and Even Death
If you’re diagnosed with high blood pressure, chances are high that your doctor wants you to take a popular kind of blood pressure medication.
But what if these exact medications that are supposed to save you could cause even more serious conditions than high blood pressure?
Breaking news released by Cambridge University reveals the alarming connection between a certain class of prescription blood pressure medications and kidney failure, even causing death in a big percentage of those who suffer it.
A class of blood pressure medication known as ACE inhibitors was studied in the landmark research.
Clarification: ACE inhibitors are a class of drugs, not a brand, so if you are unsure if the blood pressure drugs you’re taking are in this class, ask your doctor or simply search for your brand.
The data that were compared included rates of hospital admission specifically for renal (kidney) failure and the use of these popular drugs, taken by more than 5 million people worldwide.
A startling, but obvious, trend emerged. More than 58% of the patients admitted with renal failure were also taking an ACE inhibitor.
While multiple factors can contribute to renal failure (such as diabetes), the connection was overwhelming after researchers adjusted for this.
Even more alarming, those who took ACE inhibitors were at a 30% increased risk of dying compared to those who did not take the drugs.
While doctors caution patients to avoid suddenly stopping a medication, they do acknowledge that patients should be weaned off medication safely if better alternatives are available.
Safest Way to Drop Blood Pressure to 120/80 – This “Bad” Ingredient Cuts Blood Pressure in Half
Now this may go against everything you’ve ever heard about how to lower blood pressure.
In fact, this may prove that you were right all along and the doctors and other “health experts” were leading you the wrong way, telling you to cut down on this one ingredient.
You’ve probably heard of the Paleo diet (sometimes called the caveman diet) as super effective for losing weight.
Many people have achieved amazing results from following it.
But there is a bonus; according to research conducted by a team from Boston University, this diet is also a great way to bring your blood pressure down.
The secret lies in the biggest component of the diet – proteins.
The researchers tracked the blood pressure readings of 1,361 participants over a period of 11.3 years. In this period, they found that those who consumed the largest amount of protein (about 102 grams every day) had consistently low blood pressure readings compared to those who consumed the least amount of protein (about 58 grams per day).
There could be many reasons for this. It is possible that those who include lots of protein in their diet generally choose a healthy diet that is crucial for maintaining healthy blood pressure. Also, when you consume more protein, it can make you feel fuller and less likely to snack on high-calorie foods—resulting in ideal weight, which in turn benefits blood pressure.
This post is from the High Blood Pressure Exercise Program.It was made by Christian Goodman Blue Heron health news that has been recognized as one of the top-quality national health information websites.
This program will provide you the natural high blood pressure treatments, natural recipes to cook healthy meals and useful strategies to build a healthy diet with the aim to help you to maintain, stabilize and get your blood pressure down in minutes permanently and naturally.
6 Hormones That Completely Change Your Weight and Health
How does the body know when to do anything? There are thousands of complex processes going on in your body at any given time, and you have important hormones to thank for this.
Hormones are responsible for signalling the start and end of important processes, like increasing appetite or building muscle. But if they’re not functioning properly, either because of your diet or lifestyle, your health can be at risk.
There are over 50 hormones in the human body. Obviously we can’t look at all of them in one go. Instead, I’m going to break down six of the most important hormones that are crucial for good health and explain how Paleo affects them.
1. Insulin
You may not know exactly what it is, but no doubt you’ve heard of insulin. It’s a hormone that is intimately involved with your blood sugar level.
When you eat, particularly carbohydrates, your blood sugar levels typically rise. In a healthy person, these levels never reach dangerous amounts because of insulin.
The elevated blood sugar signals beta cells to release insulin into your blood. The insulin then binds to cells, which allows glucose (sugar) to enter the cells and be used for energy. Think of insulin as a gatekeeper that is needed for sugar to leave the bloodstream.
Why Insulin is Important for Good Health
Without insulin, glucose can’t leave the bloodstream. In some cases, a person cannot produce enough insulin, or becomes insulin-resistant, which means that insulin loses its ability to remove sugar from the bloodstream.
Sound familiar? That’s because this is diabetes.
A type 1 diabetic has damaged beta cells, so insulin can’t be created or stored. That’s why they need insulin injections after meals.
A type 2 diabetic can make insulin, but either in insufficient amounts, or it can’t function effectively. In the second case, this leads to not only a blood sugar buildup, but an insulin buildup as well. Insulin, in normal amounts, is a good thing.
It is one of a few hormones (that we’ll visit soon) that help regulate appetite. However, large amounts of insulin (Hyperinsulinemia) lead to weight gain.
There are 3 main mechanisms of why this happens, but it’s fairly complicated. I’d encourage you to read that paper published by Dr. Lustig if you are interested.
Wondering why being diabetic is so bad? High blood sugar and insulin resistance can cause a wide variety of serious health consequences:
Almost all those problems cause insulin resistance. Your goal should be to increase your insulin sensitivity, or maintain it at a healthy level.
Studies show that the most effective way to improve insulin sensitivity is through a low-carbohydrate diet.
A Paleo diet may be a low-carbohydrate one, but not always. Regardless, most Paleo diets will contain a significantly smaller amount of carbohydrates than most standard Western diets.
PaleoHacks conducted an interview with a type 1 diabetic, Nick. After years of living as a diabetic on a typical diet, he eventually gave Paleo a shot after some extensive research and thought.
His results were fantastic, as his hba1c levels declined from 8 to 5.6, or 30% in just 6 months. Hba1c is essentially a measure of your average blood glucose level for the last 3 months. In plain old English, this is a huge improvement.
Insulin sensitivity really goes hand in hand with carbohydrate intake, which makes a Paleo diet fairly ideal for the vast majority of people.
2. Leptin
How do you know when you are full? The answer is leptin, which is also called the “satiety hormone.”
When you eat, leptin levels rise, and your appetite starts to wane. It does a few other things that affect fertility, immunity, and brain function, but leptin’s role in appetite control is the most important.
Leptin’s Role in Good Health
Some believe that weight loss and body fat levels are all about willpower, while others think it’s a combination of genetics and hormones. While it might be impossible to prove the exact proportions, the answer is likely both.
If you are healthy, leptin tells your brain that you have sufficient fat stored away for a rainy day. If your stores are “full”, there’s no point in eating much more and your appetite is suppressed.
Since leptin controls your levels of fat storage, it makes sense that obese people have more leptin. But wait, shouldn’t that make them want to eat less?
It should, but it doesn’t – something is broken. Many obese people are leptin resistant.
Here’s the problem: Once you are leptin resistant, your brain can’t interpret the leptin signals as it should. Even though there is a ton of leptin in your bloodstream, it doesn’t think there is. This causes obese people to eat past the point of where they should be satiated, which just continues this vicious negative cycle.
Leptin and the Paleo Diet
We don’t know if obesity causes leptin resistance, or if leptin resistance causes obesity.
Either way, it’s a problem.
The science is still far from complete on the mechanism(s) behind developing leptin resistance. The most likely causes are inflammation (that leads to neuron injury), genetic factors, lifestyle, and diet.
We can’t do anything about genetic factors, but we can control diet and inflammation.
Inflammation: It can be caused both by a poor diet and stressful lifestyle. We’ve known for a while that stress can lead to weight gain, so leptin resistance due to inflammation is just one possibility.
Diet: Here’s where the Paleo diet comes in. Paleo is generally an anti-inflammatory diet because it lacks processed sugars. In addition, almost all Paleo diets will have an adequate amount of protein. A relatively high-protein diet can improve leptin sensitivity.
Lifestyle: In addition, early studies show that exercise improves leptin sensitivity. If you fully embrace a Paleo/primal lifestyle, you’ll end up moving more. Also, less sleep lowers your leptin levels, which can artificially raise the amount of food you need to eat to be satisfied.
In the case of leptin and leptin resistance, diet is just one part of the solution, but the Paleo diet can be a part of improving or maintaining leptin sensitivity.
3. Glucagon
Glucagon acts like insulin’s hyperactive twin. While insulin works to remove excess blood sugar from the bloodstream, glucagon works to increase the amount of blood sugar when there isn’t enough.
Insulin is created, stored, and released by beta cells in the pancreas. Glucagon is created, stored, and released by alpha cells in the pancreas.
Where insulin prevents fat mobilization, glucagon promotes it in order to conserve blood glucose while it tells the liver to release glucose.
Glucagon’s Role in Good Health
While we understand the function and mechanisms of glucagon, it isn’t studied nearly as much as insulin because major issues are rare.
The best way to think about it is that insulin is easy to “force” to produce, simply by overeating carbohydrates. There’s really no way of forcing glucagon to be overproduced in a healthy individual.
To become glucagon resistant, you need to have some sort of condition. If insulin levels are too high in diabetics, they can block glucagon from being released, which can lead to hypoglycemia (low blood sugar) in certain situations.
As far as glucagon and good health go, maintaining good insulin sensitivity should take care of most practical concerns. And as we already discussed, the Paleo diet is very suitable as a diet to improve or maintain good insulin sensitivity.
4. Cortisol
Cortisol gets a bad rap. People often refer to it as the “stress hormone”, which invokes reactions of distaste and panic.
But like all other hormones, cortisol plays a very important role in your physiology. In fact, without cortisol, you and I might not be here today.
Why You Need Cortisol
When you stress (usually physically), your blood sugar drops fairly quickly. While glucagon will attempt to raise that, cortisol is there to help out. Adrenal glands produce cortisol to accelerate protein breakdown and begin gluconeogenesis (GNG).
GNG is simply the process of making sugar from various by-products, including those of protein.
In addition, cortisol also signals fat cells to start releasing stored fat to be used for energy, thereby conserving blood glucose. In most situations, cortisol and glucagon are part of the same team.
So now, your body elevates the amount of sugar in your bloodstream. This is great if you need quick access to energy in highly stressful times; maybe running away from a man-eating dinosaur or bear.
mental stress (like worrying about money, jobs, etc.)
getting injured
And in the short-term, it’s a good thing. But in the long-term, consistently elevating your cortisol levels can cause major problems.
What can having prolonged elevated cortisol do?
Hinder long term memory: The mechanisms are not known in detail, but the results are. When your body elevates cortisol levels, it makes it more difficult to retrieve long-term stored memories.
Result in muscle wasting: One of the main functions of cortisol is to tell the body to break down protein in order to make energy. Once limited free protein stores are gone, the body will sacrifice muscle if needed. It’s common, when overtraining, for your body to chronically elevate cortisol levels.
Suppress the immune system: While suppressing inflammation is sometimes needed in the short-term (and cortisol does just that), any more than that and it hinders your immune system. This means injuries take much longer to heal.
Cortisol and Paleo
Your lifestyle affects your cortisol levels, but not by diet.
A strict Paleo lifestyle would involve a lot of rest and low intensity activity (walking), combined with brief spurts of high intensity activity.
This would be near-ideal from a cortisol standpoint.
While your specific lifestyle is of course going to differ, do your best to provide yourself with adequate rest and relaxation. Constant stress, whether from worrying or from frequent high-intensity training, prolongs elevated cortisol with many side effects.
5. Ghrelin
Besides being fun to say, ghrelin is affectionately known as the “hunger hormone.”
Contrary to leptin, which tells you when you are full, ghrelin tells you when you are hungry. In addition, it also plays an important role in regulating energy use, which affects how energetic you feel.
Ghrelin is released as your stomach becomes empty. It signals your body to begin preparing for incoming food, and one part of that is increasing your appetite.
Why Ghrelin is Important for Good Health
Ghrelin and leptin work in tandem to regulate the long-term weight of a person.
Leptin is more of a constant hormone, that’s always present in some level, and is reactionary to eating. Ghrelin, on the other hand, is what stimulates appetite. It is much more cyclical and ties to your circadian rhythm.
While you can’t really become ghrelin-resistant, it can function abnormally. In obese patients, studies have shown that ghrelin is not produced during sleep as it is in healthy, lean patients.
While this might seem like a good thing at first (less hungry when waking up), ghrelin is important for activating growth hormone production and energy use. A lack of ghrelin, when needed, can leave you lacking in energy, which will contribute to remaining obese.
Speaking of sleep… other studies show that people who sleep less have a higher BMI. They also have decreased leptin (satiety), and increased levels of ghrelin (hunger). It’s not a coincidence.
Your lifestyle affects your ghrelin function and body fat percentage, but not your food’s nutrition. While it’s anecdotal at this point, the Paleo diet is excellent for losing weight, which can help improve ghrelin function. While any other diet that helps you reach or maintain a healthy weight would have the same effect, Paleo is arguably one of the best.
The other factor behind proper ghrelin regulation is sleep. While that’s a complicated subject in itself, the idea is simple: sleep more, and follow a regular sleep schedule. Everyone is different, but it appears at least 8 hours is a good idea for most people.
6. Testosterone
While it’s called the “male sex hormone”, testosterone is a very important hormone for both genders. Men, of course, make and use much more of it, but women are still fairly sensitive to testosterone.
You can probably guess most of the symptoms of low testosterone based on the functions it’s used for. If you have low testosterone, you’ll likely have a low sex drive, an inability to grow muscle significantly, and weaker bones.
The bone issue is very prevalent in the elderly.
So what causes low testosterone?
One cause is chronically elevated cortisol. It also suppresses testosterone production.
In addition, low-fat diets also reduce testosterone levels. On average, study patients on a low-fat diet for 8 weeks saw a 12% reduction in resting testosterone.
Testosterone and the Paleo Diet
The Paleo diet and lifestyle is set up quite well when it comes to producing and maintaining a healthy level of testosterone.
Occasional sprinting and heavy lifting are part of a Paleo lifestyle and help increase testosterone.
Remember that you want to avoid constantly elevating cortisol levels. This means you need to relax, but make sure you don’t over-train as well.
In addition, our Paleo ancestors spent a decent amount of time in the sun. It turns out that sufficient vitamin D (from the sun) maximizes testosterone.
Finally, let’s look at nutrition. It’s very difficult to design a realistic Paleo diet that is low-fat, which is good for testosterone production.
Both saturated fat and monounsaturated fat are both necessary for healthy testosterone production. To a degree, the more of each fat you consume, the higher your resting testosterone levels.
Remember that this is just a snapshot of the hormones in your body. There are over 50 in reality, and there are some complex interactions between them that we do not fully understand yet.
Following a Paleo diet and lifestyle is a great way to improve your hormone function or maintain it.
Written by Dale Cudmore
Author Bio:
Dale is a nutrition writer, chemical engineer & professional soccer player who sees the results of proper nutrition every day in training and games. Connect with him at DaleCudmore.com
A lot of people have gotten results from the Keto diet, and enjoyed the foods that it has to offer. However, many of the people who are following this diet have a hard time finding the recipes that they need, especially ones that are quick and easy to complete.
Fortunately, Kelsey Ale, noticed this problem, and decided to do something about it. She’s found that making recipes in a slow cooker gives you meals which are not only delicious, but also take very little time to make. Mostly you just put a few simple ingredients in the slow cooker, and let it do the rest.
