Managing high blood pressure without drugs

Yet there are strategies that you can adopt that powerfully reduce and typically normalize blood pressure . Such strategies may sound unconventional at first , but are really efforts to restore your physiology to mimic that of populations who enjoy lifelong normal blood pressure .

In this episode of the Defiant Health Podcast , let's discuss these strategies that can set you free from the tyranny of the healthcare system and their over-reliance on pharmaceuticals to control blood pressure . Can blood pressure be normalized using natural methods and not resorting to the use of pharmaceuticals ? Yes , absolutely .

In fact , there may be great advantages in doing it the natural way . For one thing , there's an issue called residual risk . That's an issue my colleagues talk about , referring to the fact well established that if you have hypertension and you're put on blood pressure medication typically several .

Let's say , the first choice in drugs typically is a thiazide diuretic like chlorothalidone or hydrochlorothiazide . Then on top of that maybe they add a beta blocker like Lopressor or metoprolol or atenolol . They may add a calcium channel blocker like amlodipine , or an ACE inhibitor or an angiotensin receptor blocker .

These are drugs like lisinopril or telmasartan or losartan . So it's not uncommon , for instance , to have somebody on two , three , four blood pressure medications . So let's say that person started with very high blood pressure , now the blood pressure is normal let's say 120 over 80 , on three hypertension drugs .

Here's the problem Even though that person has a normal blood pressure on those three drugs , they are still exposed to substantial cardiovascular risk from high blood pressure with medication does not absolve you of all the excess risk , cardiovascular risk and other risks of hypertension . So medications to treat high blood pressure is a deeply flawed area .

Now there's also side effects . Now sometimes these side effects are glossed over by my colleagues but they can be quite significant . So that class of mild diuretics that I mentioned , the hydrochlorothiazide and chlorothaldone diuretics those cause fairly significant loss of minerals in your urine , but mostly potassium and magnesium .

For that reason sometimes my colleagues will prescribe supplements or prescription supplements potassium and magnesium to compensate for that . But it's not uncommon to lose control over those two things hypokalemia , low potassium , or hypomagnesemia , low magnesium . What's the importance of that ?

Well , there are long-term issues like loss of magnesium leads to bone thinning and heart rhythm disorders , but both also lead to sudden cardiac death . You don't hear too much about that , but I can tell you , having spent decades working in cath labs and coronary care units and ICUs , this is an everyday phenomenon .

Someone is admitted through the emergency room after being resuscitated from a cardiac arrest sudden cardiac death and they're found to have a very low potassium or a very low magnesium , or both very commonly , and the life-saving maneuver is to intravenously give them large doses of those two things . So that's a common side effect , a common side effect of diuretics .

How about those beta blockers like metoprolol , atenolol , sotolol , many others ? Well , they amplify insulin resistance and we'll talk about the importance of that . Insulin resistance being a driver of high blood pressure as well as numerous other health conditions . In other words , you're given a drug that actually leads to problems .

Specifically , that increase in insulin resistance caused by a beta blocker increases your likelihood of becoming pre-diabetic and a type 2 diabetic . In other words , the drugs are not flawless , they're not foolproof , they're loaded with problems .

So we're going to talk about how you can normalize blood pressure naturally . Now , when you normalize blood pressure naturally . Of course , there's no side effects . There's just no drug involved and you're not exposed to that awful issue of residual risk , because you're normalizing blood pressure the way it's supposed to be done . Now are there living examples of this ?

Yes , many of them . So one of the most studied phenomena in hunter-gatherer populations , that is , populations of humans the few remaining who live off the land .

They hunt , they gather , they fish , they gather eggs , they dig in the dirt for roots and tubers , gather berries , but they don't go to supermarkets , they don't shop in a butcher aisle , they don't eat breakfast cereals all the things that we're exposed to . Nor are they exposed to antibiotics and other factors .

Well , those populations have been shown repeatedly over the past 50 years to have normal blood pressure . Now , none of these people take blood pressure medication . They live outdoors , they live their lives in the natural way that we're adapted to , we've evolved to , and yet have no high blood pressure .

Even more interestingly , when these people migrate to urban centers so let's say the Maasai or other indigenous populations move to an urban center they become hypertensive . Many of them become hypertensive , sometimes severely . So these are the people who can have blood pressures of 210 over 110 , very dangerous levels of high blood pressure .

Yet just months or years earlier , living their natural lives , they had normal blood pressure . So I think there's an important lesson for us to take from that . So a lot of what I'm going to talk about is your way to revert back to the style of living that those people enjoyed who had normal blood pressures , without medication

. So there are two primary processes we're going to focus on . One is to normalize insulin resistance . Insulin resistance is ubiquitous now in modern populations .

It affects nearly all adults and that's a process that causes your pancreas to overproduce huge quantities of insulin and that causes an accumulation of abdominal fat and leads to increased risk for heart disease , dementia , cancers , etc . So normalizing insulin resistance fundamental . Also normalizing or reducing inflammation . Those two go hand in hand .

Inflammation gets high , blood pressure expands abdominal fat . More abdominal fat causes insulin resistance and more inflammation . There's a vicious circle in this whole process . But the two processes we want to address insulin resistance and inflammation . Well , how do you do that ? It's very easy .

Let's restore your diet to the way it should have been all along , that is , you should have killed animals for your breakfast with a spear , bow and arrow or an axe , dragged it back to your camp Eat the whole animal .

You don't just eat the meat , the lean meat , you eat the liver , the brain , the stomach , the kidneys and the meat and you save the bones and the remnants of tendons , ligaments and other things and you boil in water to make stews

and soups . You add vegetables , root vegetables , etc . That's how you should have eaten . Well , that is a lifestyle that is devoid , absent all wheat grains and has minimal sugars . So we revert back to that . That alone has spectacular effects . But you have to ignore the nonsense that comes from dietary guidelines and awful dietary studies where they did this .

They say okay , people who eat more whole grains compared to people who eat white flour products have lower blood pressure . They interpret that to mean whole grains are better for blood pressure , and that is true in a small way . What they didn't ask was , if that's true , what's the effect of no grains at all ? No wheat , no grains .

Those studies have been done and there has been a dramatic drop in blood pressure , probably because the amylopectin , not the gluten . The gluten has other effects the amylopectin , a carbohydrate unique to wheat and grains that causes insulin resistance , which leads to sodium and water retention . So probably not sodium .

By the way , it's not water , it's the sodium water retention caused by insulin resistance triggered by the amylopectin A , which people eat in huge quantities , by the way , and so we're normalizing insulin resistance through the diet . Then we address common nutrient deficiencies that add to when they're absent .

When they're lacking , they add to insulin resistance Vitamin D , magnesium , iodine and omega-3 fatty acids . These are nutrients that are hard to obtain living a modern life . For instance , if you drink water from your tap or filtered water or distilled water , all that water

has been filtered . It has to be filtered because most water nowadays is contaminated by sewage , by farm runoff and other chemicals , compounds , pharmaceuticals , etc . So you must have your water filtered .

Water filtration is very efficient , very effective at removing all magnesium and the produce you buy , the vegetables you buy , typically grown on a farm using modern techniques where the soil has been depleted of magnesium and magnesium contents about 80 to 90 percent less than it would be , say , in a wild growing plant .

So that leaves us with profound magnesium deficiency . Magnesium has a profound effect on blood pressure , so we're going to restore magnesium , so we supplement various forms of magnesium . We have a lot of choices Magnesium , malate magnesium , chelate , glycinate , bisglycinate and many others .

We do avoid magnesium oxide because it's very poorly absorbed and we try to get about 450 to 500 milligrams of the magnesium , not the entire molecule . Like if it says magnesium malate 1,300 milligrams . Look on the back and see how much magnesium that is . It's going to be about 130 milligrams or so .

So you may have to take four of those tablets or you can get powders , but you want to get around 450 to 500 milligrams of magnesium total per day if your kidneys are normal . Vitamin D Because most of us lead indoor lives , we wear clothes in public covering much of the body's surface area and we are aging .

As we age we lose the capacity to effectively activate vitamin D in the skin and , of course , you can't get vitamin D from the diet . So we supplement vitamin D as an oil-based gel cap , only for a short absorption . Capsules with powder and tablets are very poorly or erratically absorbed .

So we try to get a dose of vitamin D daily that raises your 25-hydroxy vitamin D blood level to 60 to 70 nanograms . That's what I've been aiming for . It works very well . We've never seen an episode of toxicity I've been aiming for . It works very well . We've never seen an episode of toxicity . Now , that's a bit of an oversimplification .

Vitamin D needs to be adjusted over time to your blood level and it will be affected by your body size , how much fat you have , age , race and some other things .

In general , though , most adults require about 6,000 units of the D3 oil-based gel cap to achieve that target level , and that adds further to all these beneficial effects , including a reduction of insulin resistance and inflammation . Iodine Iodine is often forgotten by most doctors and other health care providers .

Lack of iodine was a major public health problem for all throughout human history , until 1924 , when the FDA and other agencies figured out that goiters enlarged thyroid glands on the neck were due to a lack of iodine . This was a debilitating , often fatal problem for many people up until 1924 .

So the FDA , recognizing that the American public was illiterate there was no internet , no radio , no TV they just waged a poster campaign that said use more iodized salt , keep your family goiter free . Because they persuaded the salt manufacturers to add iodine , people listened , added iodized salt , goiters went away . Well then , fast forward 50 plus years .

The FDA saw that people were becoming more sensitive to salt , developing congestive heart failure , hypertension , other issues . They told everybody stop using so much salt , forgetting that it was their original advice to reduce goiters . So guess what's coming back ? Not just goiters , but also thyroid disease is escalating . So you could use iodized salt .

There's some issues with that . I prefer you use kelp tablets , dried seaweed tablets very easy , inexpensive way to get your iodine . If it says each 30 milligram tablet provides 150 micrograms of iodine , we've been aiming for about 300 to 400 thereabouts . Doesn't have to be precise Micrograms of iodine . That has worked great .

It's more than the recommended daily allowance , the RDA , because the RDA was originally developed many years ago . Based on answering this question what quantity of iodine is required to not have a goiter ? Well , there's more to thyroid health and optimization of thyroid status than not having a goiter . So I believe the dose is higher .

We've been using that higher dose , which never leads to iodine toxicity . Beware of the conversations telling people to take these mega doses of iodine like 20,000 micrograms , 30,000 micrograms . It's a very dangerous practice . I've seen so many now episodes or instances of iodine toxicity , which is severe hypothyroidism , so please don't do that .

And then , lastly , omega-3 fatty acids . We should get omega-3 fatty acids from fish consumption and shellfish , but we can't consume all we want because fish has been contaminated by industrialization , with mercury , shellfish , with cadmium , and those two accumulate in your body and they really do lead to toxicity .

So we have to minimize or limit our intake of those things . We use omega-3 fatty acids to compensate . Now , I believe the ideal dose of omega-3 fatty acids is at least 3,000 milligrams of EPA and DHA per day . If you're dealing with coronary disease , I would use 3,600 milligrams or more of EPA . It's a high dose . You're better off buying high-potency forms .

So , for instance , you bought fish salt capsules , where one capsule provides 180 milligrams EPA , 120 milligrams DHA . You're going to need 10 capsules to get 3,000 milligrams . So buy a high-potency capsule . You can get these . They're more costly . So buy a high-potency capsule . You can get these . They're more costly .

Let's say , a capsule that provides 1,000 milligrams of the combination of EPA and DHA , in which case you can take three or four and you've got the ideal dose .

Now , those four things magnesium , vitamin D , iodine , omega-3 fatty acids they're not random , they're chosen because they're lacking in modern lifestyles not because of the diet , but because of the quirks of modern lifestyles . But when combined , minimize insulin resistance and inflammation and are even more powerful in the context of the diet . Now next , gastrointestinal

microbiome . We have all , as modern people , been exposed to all sorts of things , all sorts of factors that have disrupted the gastrointestinal microbiome , starting with antibiotics .

Most adults have been wildly overexposed to antibiotics , and each exposure further damages the composition of your gastrointestinal microbiome , killing off beneficial species and allowing the overproliferation of unhealthy species .

One of the consequences of that is that when you lose beneficial species , unhealthy , mostly fecal species , colonic species overpopulate in the colon first and then are allowed to ascend into the 24 feet of small intestine . When that situation occurs , which is extremely common , it's at least 50% of people with high blood pressure .

I think it's probably more towards 100% , but it's very common . So you have fecal microbes that have infested the 24 feet of small intestine . The small intestine is ill-equipped to deal with this . The colon is better at dealing with fecal microbes , but not the small intestine .

Small intestine is the part of your GI tract designed for absorption of nutrients , and so it's very permeable . So when there's 24 feet duodenum , jejunum , ileum filled with fecal microbes that only live for a few hours , when they die , they shed their toxic components , such as something called endotoxin , into the intestines .

That then gains access into your bloodstream because of the increased permeability of the small intestine that first enters the portal venous system .

That drains the intestines to the liver , so your liver takes a beating and then the liver filters it , but still a lot of that endotoxin gets into the systemic circulation and that is a major contributor to high blood pressure , as well as numerous other problems Coronary disease , dementia risk , numerous cancers , fibromyalgia , restless leg syndrome , on and on and on .

So it's a ubiquitous process , it's extremely common and it's an extremely potent driver of high blood pressure . So we address that Now . I address it using my method that I did not have high expectations for but has proven to be far more powerful than I ever expected . That is , making something I call SIBO yogurt . It's not yogurt .

It looks and smells like yogurt , using microbes to ferment human-sourced microbes , not the silly microbes used in commercial yogurt making . Those are microbes like Lactobacillus bulgaricus , lactobacillus acidophilus , streptococcus thermophilus . Those are beneficial in a very small way . If you bought commercial yogurt , you wouldn't say your life has changed right .

It wouldn't have any substantial effect . It is beneficial , it's okay , provided it's not filled with high fructose corn syrup and other sugar and other additives we're going to do instead . Start with very interesting microbes that have two properties .

One they colonize the small intestine where SIBO occurs and they produce bactericids , natural antibiotics effective in killing or suppressing the species of SIBO .

We're going to ferment it using my method of prolonged fermentation to allow the microbes to double 12 times over 36 hours , far longer than commercial yogurt making or home yogurt making , because this is not about making yogurt , it's about getting very high microbial counts . We do that by fermenting for 36 hours at human body temperature .

These are human source microbes , so about 9,802 . So just for round numbers , I say 100 degrees Fahrenheit and then we consume a half cup per day .

Now you can if you have a really bad case of SIBO , you can ferment each microbe individually to get the highest counts , but it works just fine to co-ferment all three and then consume a half cup per day and do that for a minimum of four weeks and intermittently forever thereafter , like three times a week until at least we figure out a way to make these

microbes take up permanent residence . Haven't figured that out yet .

Now , do those things the diet reverting back to the diet that humans have adapted to over thousands and thousands of generations , that is associated confidently with normal blood pressure address common nutrient deficiencies unique to modern populations because of the peculiarities of modern life , like filtered water and living indoors , and then address seabone endotoxemia .

Now , what if you don't have seabone endotoxemia ? Well , those three microbes have so many spectacular benefits anyway .

You don't have to have SIBO to enjoy all the benefits Skin benefits , gastrointestinal benefits , immune benefits , musculature benefits , hormonal benefits , reproductive benefits so you don't have to have SIBO to enjoy the SIBO yogurt benefits , reproductive benefits .

So you don't have to have SIBO to enjoy the SIBO yogurt , but know that this is a way to normalize blood pressure without resorting to the

use of pharmaceuticals .

Now , if you want more detail on all this dosing frequency , where to obtain those microbes , for instance see all my resources , my books , including the Super Gut Book that has a lot of these recipes , my blog , williamdavismdcom , where I have several thousand blog posts detailing all these ideas , and , of course , my membership website , which is

innercircledrdavisinfinitehealthcom , where we discuss these kinds of ideas , how to improve on them , share experiences and provide support .