By the time you finish reading this article, your blood pressure will go down by 10 points. High blood pressure is the number-one risk factor for death in all countries, according to the Global Burden of Disease Study. Increased blood pressure damages the very small blood vessels in our eyes and kidneys. It’s the major cause of Kidney failure, Heart Disease, and Stroke. Every 1 in 3 Indians has High blood pressure. It’s a silent sudden fatal disease. Many do not know that they have high blood pressure, since it does not show any symptoms in most cases. Many young and adults end up in kidney failure and then dialysis because of this deadly disease.
The three major causes of High blood pressure are Salt, Oil, and animal protein diet. They damage the endothelial layer in the blood vessels and cholesterol goes and sticks to it and forms plaque. It’s called arteriosclerosis. This causes obstruction in blood flow, in various parts of your body and leads to an increase in blood pressure. Perfect health depends on the perfect Circulation of Blood in our body. Let’s learn about how Salt, Oil, and animal protein cause arteriosclerosis.
Threads from High Blood Pressure
Source: American Heart Association
Salt
Salt is a compound made up of about 40 percent sodium and 60 percent chloride. Sodium is an essential nutrient, but if you consume too much, it can cause water retention, and your body may respond by raising your blood pressure to push the excess fluid and salt out of your body. Another important factor is, that high salt injures the endothelial layer in our blood circulatory system independent of its impact on blood pressure. This harm begins within thirty minues1 of every single high-salt meal. Using a technique called laser Doppler flowmetry, researchers are able to measure blood flow in the tiny vessels in the skin. After a high-sodium meal, there is significantly less blood flow
One salty meal, not only increases blood pressure but also begins to stiffen the arteries 2. The more salty food you take, you are destroying your blood vessels. The food industry adds more salt to its food products and it is called hidden salt since salt is addictive in nature.
How to reduce salt in your diet?
First, don’t add salt to the meal at the table. Do not keep the salt shaker on the table. Second, use a little salt in the cooking. The food may taste bland at first, but within two to four weeks, the salt-taste receptors in your mouth become more sensitive, and food states better. Believe it or not, after two weeks, you will actually like the taste of food with less salt 3.
Salt is just half of the High Blood Pressure factor. The other half is the endothelial layer in the blood vessels that get damaged due to Fat, Cholesterol, and Animal Protein. The doctors generally give partial diet advice which is not enough to reverse any Chronic Disease.
Cooking Oil and Fat
Fat in any form thickens the blood and increases blood pressure. The more fat we take, the liver produces cholesterol to make the fat get soluble in the blood. Also, cholesterol from Animal food, adds up to the cholesterol level. The role of Cholesterol is used to convert the fat in food into water-soluble and helps the fat to get into the cells in the body. The nature of LDL cholesterol is, that it tends to develop fatty deposits in your blood vessels. This affects the free flow of blood and increases the pressure in the heart. The HDL cholesterol acts as a cleanup crew and brings back the LDL to the liver.
A single-time meal high in animal fat — sausage and egg McMuffin was used in the study in clinical research and can paralyze our arteries, cutting their ability to expand normally in half within hours of eating animal food products4.
The whole lining of our blood circulatory system gets inflamed and hardened. And just as that inflammation — so here’s the graph below that shows hours after high-fat meal and inflammation in our blood vessels: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 hrs.
By monitoring your blood pressure before and after 30 min of a high-fat animal diet, you can check whether this is true or not yourself. It takes another 5 to 6 hrs for the inflammation in the blood vessels to calm down. After this 5 to 6 hrs, comes the next mealtime. Again one starts harming their blood vessels by consuming unhealthy food.
All cooking oils are high in Omega 6 essential fat and are inflammatory. In order not to get Heart Disease one needs to use the bare minimum of cooking oil and must take appropriate food that contains Omega 3 essential fat. If you have High blood pressure, you need to switch to an Oil-free diet to reverse it. The use of Olive oil or any other heart-healthy oil is just marketing. If you are using ordinary refined oil, your disease condition progresses like you are traveling at the speed of 60 or more km/hr in a car. If you are using High-quality cold-press Olive oil, then it’s like going at 30 km/hr. In this, your disease condition is still progressing, but can not get well.
Animal-based food
After a meal of animal-based food, one has to suffer from endotoxemia. The blood gets mixed with bacterial toxins, known as endotoxins that are present in animal products. These dead meat bacterial toxins aren’t destroyed by stomach acid or by pancreatic enzymes, or cooking. The saturated animal fat present in animal-based food boosts the absorption of these toxins into our bodies. Because these toxins are fat-soluble, get dissolved well in the fat while cooking, enter into our bloodstream easily, and cause inflammation in the blood vessels. No matter how hygienic and fresh, the animal-based food is, endotoxins will be produced by the bacteria.
Diabetes
High blood glucose level injures the endothelial layer in the blood vessel. To heal the wound, cholesterol goes and sticks to it. The presence of High Blood Pressure was 1.5–2.0 times higher in patients with diabetes than in those who do not have diabetes.
Alcohol and Smoking
Drinking alcohol and Smoking Damage the Endothelial layer in the blood vessels and cause high blood pressure and Heart disease. There are a lot of proven nutrition and diet methods to quit easily these bad habits. Contact me, if you need help quitting alcohol and smoking. Soon I will be writing articles on these.
Lifestyle factors
such as Not drinking enough water, not getting enough sleep, and lack of exercise are also contributing to high blood pressure.
What About Medications?
Medications are saving lives and must be taken. But will not help in the long run. If you are not going to change your diet and lifestyle, more powerful medications will be prescribed by your doctor that will have lots of side effects and will end up in the ICU one day. If you have High Blood Pressure, it means you are sitting on a ticking bomb.
The Solution
It’s scientifically proven that a whole-food plant-based diet, can reverse High Blood Pressure. Today most people’s diets consist of High fat, High animal protein, and low fiber. You understood now that our daily food choices and lifestyle causes chronic inflammation in the body. It leads to Diabetes, high blood pressure, cancer, etc. after a long run. To reduce High blood pressure and come out of medications by cleaning the blood vessels filled with cholesterol, fat, and calcium deposits in 4 to 12 weeks, through my Diet, Nutrition, and Lifestyle Program, Please send a Whatsapp request by tapping the Whatsapp image below for more details.
References:
1. Endothelial function is impaired after a high-salt meal in healthy subjects
The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, Volume 93, Issue 3, March 2011, Pages 500–505
Atherosclerosis Volume 232, Issue 1, January 2014, Pages 211-216
3. Policy options to reduce population salt intake.
British medical journal, 2011;343:d4995
4. Effect of a Single High-Fat Meal on Endothelial Function in Healthy Subjects
The American Journal of Cardiology,
Volume 79, Issue 3, 1 February 1997, Pages 350-354
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 20 September 2010