M. Alfredo Mejia, an associate professor in the Department of Public Health, Nutrition & Wellness at Andrews University in Michigan has developed a program to help people manage their blood pressure using diet, exercise, and sleep. Mejia presented his NEWSTART Lifestyle program at the American Society for Nutrition’s annual meeting. The program focused on a plant-based diet that includes fruits, vegetables, legumes, whole grains, seeds, and nuts. The program also targets water consumption, regular exercise, stress management techniques, and sleep.In Mejia’s first study, half of the participants in his program lowered their blood pressure to a recommended level in just fourteen days.That’s equivalent to the results you can expect from standard medical treatments. Lifestyle changes ultimately freed 93 percent of the participants from all their blood pressure medications.

Case study of man who healed himself of high blood pressure using lifestyle/diet modifications

This report follows the life of a man who was diagnosed with hypertension when he was thirty years old and tells the remarkable story of his recovery from high blood pressure and weaning from medication through the use of lifestyle changes and diet modifications. At the time of diagnosis, he followed a doctor’s advice and took lisinopril, an ACE-inhibitor that blocks a hormone in the adrenal gland, forcing the kidneys to secrete sodium into the urine. By default, this process lowers blood pressure, but in many people’s cases, more medication is needed to continue the effect.

The required dosage increased; captopril and norvasc were prescribed to keep his blood pressure low. The drugs causing lethargy, dry cough, and swollen lips. He experienced intermittent heart palpitations and episodes of intense heart racing when bending over and standing up. The root of the problem was never fixed with the medications. This is when he began to seek a holistic way to control his blood pressure.

Instead of manipulating enzyme processes and hormones using medication, he began to give his cells the instructions they desperately needed for improved blood flow and reduction of arterial plaques. He made it a priority to include 1 cup of organic spinach, 1 organic carrot, a bowl of oatmeal, 1 T of flax seed, 1 organic apple and 2 tablespoons of spirulina in his daily routine. He also enjoyed a 1/2 cup of various tree nuts which included almonds, pecans or Brazil nuts. He routinely consumed 2 tablespoons of apple cider vinegar with the mother intact. This allowed for better absorption of nutrients and proper digestion. He made sure to get plenty of restorative sleep. Studies have linked the importance of quality sleep to cardiovascular health.

Furthermore, he supplemented his daily routine with a mixture of powdered roots, barks, and berries. These included 1 teaspoon of the following: hawthorn berry, turmeric root, oat straw, schisandra berry, burdock, catuaba bark and Eleutherococcus root (Siberian ginseng), with some cayenne pepper.

He made sure to drink 120 ounces or more of clean water daily, filtered by activated charcoal filters to remove pesticides, heavy metals, endocrine disrupters and runoff medications. Vitamin D and an L-arginine supplement were also important. He intentionally exposed himself to the sun for 30 minutes each day and supplemented with vitamin D3. He also avoided “aspartame, MSG, corn syrup, and processed food in general.”

By his mid-thirties he had weaned himself off the medication and regularly recorded healthy blood pressure readings, averaging 120/80. In his forties he lived very well, free of medication. Even as he hit 50, this man recorded lower-than-normal blood pressure readings.

Common sense approach

Lifestyle adjustments are a required part of maintaining good health, even for those on medication. Good results are not surprising when you make these changes, according to Dr. Andrew Freeman, a cardiologist at National Jewish Health in Colorado. Science has backed this approach for a long time. But it does take work.

Injuries to arteries and acute medical conditions may require medical intervention, but lifestyle generally dictates longevity. You too could enjoy a healthy blood pressure throughout life, without medication, if you’re willing to make good choices and establish good eating habits that prioritize healthy blood flow.

Sources include:
Healthline.com
NaturalNews.com
NaturalNews.com
NCBI.NLM.NIH.gov

Struggling to find clinical benefits for statin drugs and blood pressure medications, a team of researchers put two drug protocols to the test to see their effects on human thinking and memory. The research, funded by the maker of the drugs (AstraZeneca), hoped to find cognitive benefits for candesartan and hydrocholorothiazide, rosuvastatin, or a combination of the protocols. The study was published online in Neurology, the medical journal for the American Academy of Neurology (AAN). The AAN represents the world’s largest association of neurologists and neuroscience professionals and is dedicated to promoting the highest quality patient-centered neurological care.

Neurologists find out that statin and high blood pressure meds do not improve oxygen-rich blood flow to the brain

The study found that the statin and the high blood pressure med were unable to slow declines in thinking and memory of human participants. Even though heart disease is closely linked to problems with thinking and memory, the statin and high blood pressure medications were unable to improve blood flow to the brain and slow cognitive decline over a six-year period.

“Heart disease has been linked to problems with thinking and memory, so we examined whether managing heart disease with medications like blood pressure and cholesterol lowering drugs can reduce some of those cognitive problems,” said study author Jackie Bosch, Ph.D., of the Population Health Research Institute and the School of Rehabilitation Science at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada.

The study included over 1,600 adults with an average age of 74. According to vital signs, all were determined to have a one percent chance of having a heart attack or other cardiac event that same year. At least 45 percent of the participants had stage two hypertension or high blood pressure. The participants were given physicals every six months and had to take thinking and memory tests immediately before the study, every six months, and after the six-year study period.

One group took a daily dose of 16 milligrams of AstraZeneca’s blood pressure med candesartan and 12.5 mg of hydrochlorothiazide. Another group took a daily dose of 10mg of rosuvastatin. The third group took a combination of the drugs and the final group took placebo pills. When compared to the placebo group, neither of the prescription drug protocols reduced cognitive decline over the six-year period.

This brings up the question: Are the drugs addressing systemic inflammation of the epithelial cells that line the inside of the arteries? Are the drugs helping promote oxygen-rich blood flow to the brain and other organs? If memory and thinking do not improve while the drugs are used, are the drugs helping the arteries heal or not?

In any event, the study falls short because it did not compare the drugs with any true natural medications, such as pomegranate juice.

Pomegranate juice improves blood pressure, LDL cholesterol levels and memory and cognitive function

Pomegranate juice has been found to lower blood pressure, improve LDL cholesterol levels, while boosting memory and critical thinking processes. New research from Evidence-Based Complementary and Alternative Medicine finds that pomegranate juice can significantly improve verbal memory tests, while increasing brain activity for “critical task-related” regions of the brain. The benefits were observed in as little as four weeks and were tested against a placebo. Researchers used memory tests, MRI scans and blood draws to document significant improvements during verbal and visual memory tasks. This is because pomegranates possess a unique arrangement of antioxidants that drastically reduce oxidative stress and help unclog arteries.

In fact, a study published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition found that pomegranate juice can reduce plaques in carotid arteries up to 30 percent in a given year’s time. Those who did not drink the juice saw no benefit and actually saw an increase in arterial blockage as great as nine percent. Because pomegranate juice effectively reduces arterial plaques, those who drink it receive improved blood flow throughout their body, especially to the brain. The influx of oxygen-rich blood to the brain helps with verbal tasks, memory, and improved cognitive function.

The pomegranate study from Evidence-Based Complementary and Alternative Medicine concluded: “After 4 weeks, only the pomegranate group showed a significant improvement in the Buschke selective reminding test of verbal memory and a significant increase in plasma trolox-equivalent antioxidant capacity (TEAC) and urolithin A-glucuronide. Furthermore, compared to the placebo group, the pomegranate group had increased fMRI activity during verbal and visual memory tasks. While preliminary, these results suggest a role for pomegranate juice in augmenting memory function through task-related increases in functional brain activity.”

Neurologists should be recommending antioxidant-rich medicines such as pomegranate juice for improved blood flow to the brain, while calling for more studies to compare failing drugs with real medicinal foods.

Sources include:
Newswise.com
NCBI.NLM.NIH.gov
NaturalSociety.com
Academic.oup.com

Are antibiotics a form of biological warfare, weakening your ability to fight infections? A new study published in Cell Reports condemns the use of prescription antibiotics because these drugs suppress innate immune signals. Antibiotics may actually increase your risk of getting the flu and having complications from any infection because they suppress an antiviral immune signal located directly in the lungs.

Antibiotics weaken innate anti-viral immune response in lung cells

Researchers from Francis Crick Institute, a biomedical research centre in London, learned that antibiotics weaken first line immune response in the lungs by altering the microbiome. The damage was observed in the immune system of rodents after a two week course of antibiotics. The antibiotics weakened a first line of defense in the lungs called type I interferon (IFN). This immune suppression made the rodents more susceptible to influenza and made it harder for their immune system to fight the virus post infection, leading to more severe symptoms and complications from the flu.

Primary care physicians have been carelessly prescribing antibiotics for decades, putting patients at increased risk of influenza infections, while instigating complications from the flu. Antibiotics are not only speeding up the evolution of pathogens but they are also destroying innate immune response to viruses, allowing common infections to become more severe and deadly. About 700,000 people die yearly due to drug resistant infections that are taking advantage of weakened immune systems.

Rodents, not exposed to antibiotics, “over produced” these innate immune signals and were less likely to catch the flu at all. When a virus breaches the immune system, the body will send out IFN signals, triggering a form of inflammation that selectively targets the virus without damaging healthy tissue.

“This study supports that taking antibiotics inappropriately not only promotes antibiotic resistance and wipes out the commensals in your gut that are useful and protective, but it may also render you more susceptible to viral infections,” concluded Dr Andreas Wack, leader of the study.

Furthermore, the researchers were able to reverse immune suppression by transplanting fecal matter from the healthy mice to the weak mice that were damaged by antibiotics.

Anyone who takes antibiotics is immuno-compromised, more susceptible to viral infection, and at risk to complications from influenza

The rodents with a productive IFN response were more resistant to the flu virus from the onset. If an infection did take hold, the viral load was significantly reduced after eight hours. After two days, the virus did not take hold and a subsequent immune response never fully kicked in because it was not necessary. These rodents recovered more quickly and didn’t suffer from complications. When these same mice were given antibiotics for two to four weeks, the innate anti-viral signals they once possessed began to diminish.

The antibiotics decimated the innate signaling in the rodents’ lung stromal cells, the connective tissue that encases the lungs. The researchers could only restore this innate immune response by transplanting fecal matter of healthy rodents to the immune-suppressed ones. The fecal transplant boosted the population and diversity of gut bacteria, helping these living commensal bacteria species mediate innate immune response in the lung cells again.

“This and previous studies demonstrate that microbiota-driven signals can act at multiple levels,” said Dr Wack. “[The signals] induce an antiviral state to control infection early on, enhancing the functionality of immune cells later in infection.”

“Previous research has suggested that the microbiota-driven signal in lung stromal cells could originate either from the gut or the lung,” Wack says. “However, in the work presented here, the results of the fecal transplant experiments strongly suggest a gut involvement in this effect. We would love to understand the exact nature of the signal from the gut to the lung, and we are working on several hypotheses.”

Sources include:
DailyMail.co.uk
EurekaAlert.org