Treat Blood Pressure
High blood pressure is a problem for many people.
My name is Doctor Gordon Cameron and thank you for visiting my hypertension website. It's my aim in life to help you to lower blood pressure and to keep you up to date with new blood pressure information and treatment tips with the information written in a simple clear way.
Salt and High Blood Pressure
The Truth About Salt and High Blood PressureIf you have high blood pressure then I'm sure you'll have heard of the link between salt intake and high blood pressure. Too much salt causes high blood pressure - reduce your salt intake and lower your blood pressure: or so the conventional story goes!
But new research is raising some very interesting questions about the role of salt in blood pressure control.
An
article published in India summarises the current state of affairs quite well.
High blood pressure is not only caused by too much salt. Neither is blood pressure lowered by simply cutting salt out of your diet.
It seems that it is not only salt intake that controls blood pressure, but much more related to how your body manages sodium and its proportion to the amount of potassium, calcium and magnesium in your body.
Research has shown that deficiencies in potassium, calcium and magnesium have a much greater impact on blood pressure than does salt intake. These other minerals are so important in controlling blood pressure that when they are out of balance with each other, they can make salt more of a threat to healthy blood pressure.
So what should you do to improve your blood pressure control?
Well, reduce your salt intake certainly - but you also need to increase the amount of potassium, calcium and magnesium in your diet. The combination of these things can make a huge difference.
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Combined Medication To Treat Blood Pressure
New blood pressure drug choicesOne Pill for All Ills !A german / italian based drug manufacturer has launched a new combination pill for high blood pressure treatment.
The new combined drug contains a combination of both an ACE inhibitor type drug and a calcium channel blocker drug.
Most high blood pressure patients now need more than one type of medication to keep their blood pressure at desired levels. This is especially true for those people with other associated diseases or risk factors
Some doctors believe that fixed combinations of more than one high blood pressure drug in the one tablet or capsule will play an increasing role in the future of high blood pressure treatment.
The advantages of fixed combinations instead of giving separate treatments might be significant for some patients. The combined dosages of the drugs are those broadly used by the physician and their effectiveness has been previously proven in clinical trials.
The manufacturers hope that the reduction of the number of pills that people take might make them nore likely to take them.
This kind of
compliance with blood pressure treatment is extremely important in chronic treatments aimed at reducing and preventing cardiovascular risk.
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Blood Pressure Check
Have a rest before having your blood pressure checkedNew research evidence shows that it's worthwhile sitting for ten minutes of rest before you or your doctor checks your blood pressure.
A research team from Italy have shown that the blood pressure readings can drop by as much as ten points depending on when the reading is taken.
Blood pressure readings were highest immediately after the patient sat down. Blood pressure readings were lowest when the patient had been seated for ten minutes. No further reductions in blood pressure happened after the first ten minutes.
Try it for yourself at home if you have a home blood pressure monitor - and remember about it the next time you visit your doctor for a blood pressure check up.
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Very High Blood Pressure
Very High Blood Pressure
It can sometimes be difficult to lower very high blood pressure. Medications don't always work as effectively as they should.
High blood pressure symptoms may not always show themselves in their true light.
No-one really knows just how many of us suffer from inadequately controlled high blood pressure but it some research specialists think that blood pressure treatment goals are not achieved properly in up to forty percent of patients.
This kind of poor control is sometimes called
resistant high blood pressure or
resistant hypertensionResistant high blood pressure is more common in patients aged over 60.
Some patients fail to gain good blood pressure control despite taking three different drugs at the same time.
Here's how your doctor (and of course you yourself) should approach things if your blood pressure is not responding well to treatment.
- You need to take an honest and careful look about how well you are sticking to your treatment plan
- You need to look at things in your lifestyle that could be making lower blood pressure harder to achieve (salt, caffeine, dairy produce, obesity, alcohol, lack of exercise)
- Your doctor may need to search for a treatable underlying cause or other disease which could be triggering your high blood pressure
- It will almost certainly be worth having things checked on a 24 hour ambulatory blood pressure device - asking the question of how high your blood pressure really is (or isn't) in day to day situations
- Your doctor needs to review your drugs (blood pressure and otherwise) to look for any that might be interacting with each other and causing a higher blood pressure reading
In my own experience - both as a doctor and as a blood pressure sufferer - it's often simple changes in lifestyle that lead to the biggest benefits.
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Beta Blockers - Important New Beta Blocker Guidelines
New UK Guidelines about Beta Blockers PublishedBeta blocker drugs have been used for treating high blood pressure for many years.
There are several different beta blocker drugs available and many different brand names. However, if you look at the proper name for the drug then you will always find that it ends in
"olol"So - a few examples would be:
Atenolol, Metoprolol, Bisoprolol, Nadolol, Sotalol, Propanolol and so on and so on - you get the picture I'm sure.
Anyway - new UK guidelines published today have strongly suggested that new patients diagnosed with high blood pressure are not given beta blocker drugs - and further: that patients already on beta blockers are gradually changed to other drugs.
This last bit is very important. It could be very dangerous to stop taking a beta blocker suddenly - don't do it until you've spoken to your doctor. You are likely to be changed to another drug at the same time that the beta blocker drug is stopped.
Read more hereRemember - speak to your doctor about this. Don't be tempted to alter your own medication.
Beta blockers also are notorious for causing side effects such as tiredness. Read more about
fatigue due to beta blockers here
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Coffee and Heart Disease Risk
Does coffee drinking increase the risk of heart disease?
A new long term research study has shown that drinking filtered coffee doesn't seem to increase the risk of heart disease. This seems true even when people are drinking more than six cups a day.
Many previous studies have looked for a link between coffee and heart disease but the results have never allowed a clear picture to emerge.
This new study looked at huge numbers of people - forty thousand men and eighty thousand women and followed them for nearly twenty years.
No link was found between coffee intake and the risk of heart disease. Nor was high coffee intake associated with a high blood cholesterol level.
You should note however that this study related to filter coffee - the findings might be different fot stronger coffee types such as expresso or french press coffee.
Other recent studies have also shown that moderate coffee intake is not harmful for your blood pressure levels - careful with the cake and buns though !!
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Heart Disease and Alcohol Intake
Does alcohol protect against heart disease?A new study from Denmark hints that men who drink moderate amounts of alcohol every day have a lower risk of heart disease than those who drink less frequently. But the same is not true for women.
Previous research has shown on more than one occasion that moderate drinkers have a lower risk of coronary heart disease than those who don't drink alcohol at all. Nearly all the studies have been on men however and we don't really know how alcohol affects heart disease risk in women.
The Danish study looked at more than 50,000 men and women aged between fifty and sixty five as part of a national health study.
The results showed that women who drank alcohol regularly had a lower risk of heart disease than women who drank alcohol on less than one day a week. But the heart disease risk reductions were similar whether the women drank on one day a week (36% reduced risk) or seven days a week (35% reduced risk). This hints that - for women - it is the amount of alcohol consumed that matters rather than the regular intake.
Men are different. In men the risk of heart disease seemed lowest for the most frequent drinkers. For example, men who drank on one day a week had a 7% reduced risk, while men who drank daily had a 41% reduced risk.
This suggests that it does not matter how much men drink, as long as they drink every day.
Please don't forget however that the benefits of alcohol on coronary heart disease are by far exceeded by the harmful effects of heavy alcohol drinking - don't use this research as an excuse to increase your drinking ... tempting though that might be for some of us!
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Should Healthy People Take Aspirin?
Should you take aspirin to protect your health?
A newly published review in US publication - The Medical Letter on Drugs and Therapeutics, has taken an overview on the available evidence on whether a low daily dose of aspirin can protect against heart disease for those who have never previously had any history of heart problems. The story is much more clear cut for those who have already had a heart attack or a stroke.
Recent years have seen new research information published - especially in how women differ from men in respect of heart disease.
The population looked at in these newer studies was healthy, although some of those included had risk factors for heart disease but did not yet have any actual history of heart disease or stroke.
The results showed that if healthy men took low dose aspirin for about six years they had a slight reduction in their risk of heart attack. If health women took low dose aspirin for the same time period then they had a slight reduction in the risk of stroke.
Aspirin however, did not make any significant difference to the risk of dying from heart disease or stroke. Nor did it reduce the risk of dying from any other cause.
So - only marginal benefit from aspirin. What about the risks?
The studies showed that the risks from taking aspirin were substantial. There were increases in major bleeding problems and - in men - an increase in the risk of stroke due to brain haemorrhage among those who took the aspirin.
So what's the message? It seems pretty clear that aspirin can do more harm than good in healthy people who have no previous history of heart attack, stroke or angina.
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Dr Cameron Says:
As a family doctor and a blood pressure sufferer myself I know that people are often confused by medical terms and mumbo jumbo. You won't find that here - just simple, plain, high quality advice about high blood pressure and related issues.
I hope you find the articles helpful.
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