Blood pressure creeping up

Friends,

Anyone have any ideas on why my blood pressure would be going up . I've been following the "Strategy for a year and a half, and have cut out almost all added sugar and vegetable oils, but for the past year my BP has been around 140/90. Normally it's 120/80 or less. Initially I thought it was some kind of anomaly, but it has been consistently high for 6 months. It has also correlated with an increase in PACs. I'm eating better than I have been in my entire life, stress is reasonably low. Afib events have switched from adrenergic to vagel. (That's another mystery) Anyway, I don't want to start any BP meds , without first trying something natural, although when I look online for suggestions, it seems I'm pretty much doing anything they recommend. I have to take about 1 gram of potassium a day to control the PACs, but as far as I know, that should actually help keep it low. I'm thinking it may be kidney related, since I urinate more than I think is normal. ( this may also be a reason I can't seem to hold onto any minerals.

Anyway, suggestions are welcome.

Thanks,

John

if you're worried about calcification of the arteries, you can get an Ultra-fast CT scan - costs about $300 though. I do that every 10 years or so..

John,

Read The High Blood Pressure Solution: <[www.amazon.com]

He talks about two things: 1) having a ratio of potassium to sodium of 4:1 or better on intake, mostly through food choices (not supplements) and usually through sodium reduction and potassium increase 2) high levels of insulin signal the kidney to conserve sodium and excrete potassium. From my perspective, it is unfortunate that the diet and recipies in the book are generally 70% carbs. This will lead to high levels of insulin.

Your urination issue could be a sign of blood sugar (and high insulin) issues. Getting a glucometer and measuring your blood sugar after meals could tell a lot. 45 minutes after eating is usually the max serum glucose, unless someone has delayed stomach emptying. I'd try to keep my glucose under 100 mg/dl (5.55 mmol/l) after eating and see what happens. To do this you usually have to reduce your carbohydrate intake significantly.

George

"45 minutes after eating is usually the max serum glucose, unless someone has delayed stomach emptying. I'd try to keep my glucose under 100 mg/dl (5.55 mmol/l) after eating and see what happens."

100 mg/dl after 45 mins post-prandial? How realistic is that for most people?

83 mg/dl post prandial is Dr. Richard Bernstein's (a T1 diabetic for ~60 years) goal for himself and his diabetic patients (he's been treating them in practice since the early 80's). He also suggests an A1C level ~4.6%. <[www.diabetes-book.com] 100 mg/dl is a goal I set for myself and adhere to most of the time (as a normal).

I'm not saying it is usual. You do have to change your lifestyle. It is possible if you are motivated.

When afib joined my life 10 years ago, I examined every possible aspect that could contribute. One of those areas was blood sugar. This, even though I had a "perfect" blood lipid test by standards: 149 TC, 48 HDL, 92 LDL, 9 VLDL, 43 Triglycerides & fasting glucose of 85. I purchased a glucometer and realized my postprandial results were less than stellar. As I am persuaded that inflammation due to poor glucose and insulin control is the root of many of our chronic illnesses (of aging), I proceeded to modify my lifestyle accordingly.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/01/2014 04:23AM by GeorgeN.

I agree with that (lowering carbs and therefore blood sugar is important). I recently did a 75gm Glucose Tolerance test and it came out as 93 fasting, 120 after 1 hour, back to 93 after 2 hours - not a bad result, but when I read things like Dr Kresser writes [chriskresser.com] I have to wonder if the fasting rate of 93 really will lead me to (pre)diabetes in 10 years. Kresser seems to think it's a slippery slope above 83 or so.

Your results are very good. My results were much worse. As I recall, with 75 g glucose it was like 180 at 1/2 hour, 140 at one hour and 56 at two. Fasting blood sugar is an interesting question, and can be a poor metric. I'll post more on it later. I'm off to go play on the rocks this morning...

Thanks for the input , My fasting glucose is 91, which is considered normal, but I've read some other authors who recommend it should be below 90. I've never done a test after a meal. Could a high result there explain why I get PACs about 20 minutes after eating? Guess I'll get a glucometer and check it out. I've been on what I consider low carb for about a year, but I'm probably still getting 150-200 grams a day. In my previous life ( pre afib) I was an endurance athlete and bigtime carb addict.

John

John - On the potassium intake... remember that in order for potassium to work as it should, you need to have optimal magnesium inside the cells. Dr. Moore's book is an excellent reference and serves to point out that most people don't get enough potassium from foods to offset the intake of sodium when consuming restaurant or other prepared foods regularly...... to come even close to a 4:1 ratio which is a bare minimum. Ideally the potassium intake will be higher than that. Check out CR 72 on how the sodium/potassium pumps work to keep everything in balance - especially the references to Dr. Moore's research. This all applies to afib as well.

Also keep in mind that arterial stiffness (hardening of the arteries) lies at the core of hypertension. You can reverse that with dietary changes and specific supplements. Do a Google on 'supplements to reverse arterial stiffness'... Pay attention to adding vitamin D3 in the form of cholecalciferol to your daily intake... and better yet, first, have your 25OHD levels checked to see where you are before starting. Vitamin D helps direct any calcium consumed into bones where it belongs and away from arteries and other soft tissue where the calcifications cause problems.

Also Google AGEs - Advanced Glycation End products.. which is the aging process in which the body 'carmelizes' from the foods that cause glycation and arterial stiffness among other detrimental effects. The blood glucose issue does become a highly relevant factor especially with age but always important at any age. The April 2013 issue of Townsend letter is devoted to Diabetes, Insulin Resistance and managing pre-diabetic conditions. The consensus is to stay below 90.... closer to 80 is better.

Lastly and very important.... include a minimum of 3 - 4 grams daily of a pure, molecularly distilled Omega 3 fish oil such as Nordic Naturals or Carlson's to help with not only reducing inflammation of the arteries that leads to stiffness and plaque buildup but also to reverse the process that leads to hardening. Be very mindful of the type of fats and oils you consume daily. One study of many via a Google on Omega 3's for Arterial Stiffness:
[www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov]

Jackie

John,

I agree with what Jackie has posted but would also suggest taking ginger capsules, one with each meal and one before bed time.
Ginger lowers blood pressure, its an anti inflammatory, improves circulation, thins the blood, supports digestive health, and is an antioxidant.
Get Now Foods, Ginger Root Extract, 250 mg. You can get it through the vitamin shop.

Colin

Colin - thanks for adding the Ginger comment... In addition to the Omega 3's, there are many highly effective herbals including ginger and curcumin that have highly-effective anti-inflammatory properties that help lower the potential risks from both inflammation and hypertension.

There is much more to add to this topic by bringing forward links to all of the past posts on inflammation.

Jackie

Thank you Jackie and Colin!!! I will do some more research and make those changes.

John

As to fasting blood sugar. It is really measuring the body's response to the "dawn effect." This is where the liver starts pumping out glycogen (glucose) at around 4AM to the the body ready for the day. This is why you can have a higher fasting blood sugar that when you go to bed. This description is for a normal person, who is not on diabetic meds or insulin.

I, and some friends, have noticed that fasting blood sugar can be correlated with how many carbs you ate the day before. The insulin system has two stages - initially from stored insulin and then with insulin being made to meet the demand. It is like if you eat a lot of carbs the day before, it depletes the stored insulin and the on-demand rate isn't enough to keep the fasting blood sugar in the 70-85 range. I'm guessing a person with a perfect pancreas wouldn't have this problem - I'm not that person.

Some folks who've been on very low carb diets for a while report fairly high fasting blood sugar - 120 or more. Sometimes this drops when they add some starch into their diet. I do not know the explanation.

People who've been on a low carb diet (<50g carbs/day) for a while need to have at least 3 days of 150g carbs/day before they do a glucose tolerance test. Otherwise they will test as very diabetic.

Testing after meals with a glucometer can give a lot of information. You can easily see which meals provide the biggest spike and then moderate or change the character of those meals if you choose. For example, I used to make oatmeal from whole oats I'd flattened or run through a press. This should be a fairly low glycemic index food as compared to "minute" oatmeal. I tested 45 minutes after eating it and found my glucose at 140 mg/dl. This was a food I then decided to avoid.

George

Re low carb and higher fasting blood sugar, Dr Kresser explains it in part 2 of the article I posted a link to earlier in this thread
and at [high-fat-nutrition.blogspot.com]

One caveat here is that very low-carb diets will produce elevated fasting blood glucose levels. Why? Because low-carb diets induce insulin resistance. Restricting carbohydrates produces a natural drop in insulin levels, which in turn activates hormone sensitive lipase. Fat tissue is then broken down, and non-esterified fatty acids (a.k.a. “free fatty acids” or NEFA) are released into the bloodstream. These NEFA are taken up by the muscles, which use them as fuel. And since the muscle’s needs for fuel has been met, it decreases sensitivity to insulin. You can read more about this at Hyperlipid.

Eating my normal LC fare, my fasting serum glucose usually ranges between 75-85 mg/dl.

There is also an argument for those on long term LC diets to periodically spike their insulin to reset hormones like thyroid, leptin & etc. Perhaps one night a week.

Good info, George. Thanks. The bottom line, really is though... the Hemoglobin AlC measurement which many say is the true indicator of how you manage glucose over time and helps identify the detrimental aging factor tendencies including the AGEs and RAGEs. My FM MD is always moe interested in the AlC number than fasting glucose... but that said, along with fasting glucose, she always is interested in the corresponding fasting insulin number as well.

......." Measuring hemoglobin A1c is different from a single fasting blood glucose test, which only provides a snapshot of one’s current blood sugar level and is subject to daily variation. In contrast, the hemoglobin A1c test shows the bigger picture of a weighted average of blood sugar levels over the past three to four months.5-7 This simple test is thus a powerful measure of elevated long-term blood sugar and glycation levels, which scientists believe may be intimately involved in accelerated aging.8

However, this valuable tool is being dramatically underutilized in the context of aging. The hemoglobin A1c test measures the presence of glucose molecules that join hemoglobin in a destructive process called glycation. The formation of glycated hemoglobin in red blood cells is thus termed hemoglobin A1c. The hemoglobin A1c test therefore identifies the potential for age-accelerating glycation reactions in our bodies, which are implicated in many life-threatening diseases.8-11 Glycation plays an important role in the development of diabetic retinopathy resulting in blindness, diabetic neuropathy resulting in nerve damage, and diabetic nephropathy resulting in kidney failure.12 "
Source:
Aging and Glycation: The Importance of Hemoglobin A1c Testing
[www.lef.org]



Since we are discussing in this thread reasons for increases in elevated blood pressure, this on AGEs and RAGEs is both current and relevent:

Curr Pharm Des. 2014;20(14):2395-402.
Role of AGEs-RAGE System in Cardiovascular Disease.
Fukami K, Yamagishi S, Okuda S1.

Abstract

Advanced glycation end products (AGEs) are a heterogenous group of molecules formed during a non-enzymatic reaction between proteins and sugar residues. Recently, AGEs and their receptor (receptor for AGEs; RAGE) play a central role in the pathogenesis of cardiovascular disease (CVD), which accounts for disability and high mortality rate in patients with diabetes. AGEs initiate diabetic micro- and macrovascular complications through the structural modification and functional alteration of the extracellular matrix proteins as well as intracellular signaling molecules. Engagement of RAGEs with AGEs elicits intracellular reactive oxygen species (ROS) generation and subsequently activates mitogen-activated protein kinase (MAPK) and nuclear factor kappa-B (NF-κ signaling, followed by production of several inflammatory and/or profibrotic factors such as vascular cell adhesion molecule-1 (VCAM-1), intercellular adhesion molecule-1 (ICAM-1), plasminogen activator inhibitor-1 (PAI-1) and monocyte chemoattractant protein-1 (MCP-1), thereby being involved in the progression of atherosclerosis. Administration of soluble form of RAGE (sRAGE) could work as a decoy receptor for AGEs and might inhibit the binding of AGEs to RAGE, preventing the development and progression of atherosclerosis in animal models. Furthermore, AGEs/high mobility group box-1 (HMGB-1)-RAGE interaction is involved in heart failure, abdominal aortic aneurysm (AAA) and vascular calcification as well. Thus, blockade of the AGEs/HMGB-1-RAGE system may be a promising therapeutic target for preventing diabetes- and/or age-related CVD. We review here the pathological role of the AGEs/HMGB-1-RAGE system in various types of CVD.

PMID: 23844818 [PubMed - in process]

[www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov]

Jackie

Jackie,

One interesting thing about the A1C test - is assumes an average turnover or replacement time for red blood cells. There are data suggesting that some with very low (normal) blood sugar can have somewhat higher A1C values, like in the high 5's. This is because in a low serum glucose environment the cells actually last significantly longer and therefore are exposed to what glucose there is for a longer period of time.

Conversely, those with higher glucose levels have faster cell turnover.

This doesn't change the reading, only the interpretation of what the reading means and correlating it back to an average serum glucose level.

See: <[chriskresser.com]

George



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/03/2014 12:36AM by GeorgeN.

Hi John,

Try the Ayurvedic herb, Coleus Forskohlii. Research this before doing so. I think you will find this to be an amazing supplement and that it will lower your blood pressure by at least 10 points, among other positive side effects.