Destroying Causes of High Blood Pressure
He came in with a blood pressure of 164/104. He was quite concerned. His doctor had just said, “It’s time to put you on medication.” He asked me, “Why is my blood pressure high?”
To understand blood pressure we need to look at several different aspects of circulation. First, there’s the purpose of circulation. Every cell in the body wants something to eat, oxygen to breathe, water to drink and their cellular wastes hauled away. Every cell needs these things to be happy, and the blood is the body’s delivery system. This makes the demands on the circulatory system very high.
To do its job efficiently, the circulatory system must have four specific things: 1) blood the consistency of free-flowing-water, 2) amount of blood to fill the vessels and satisfy the demands, 3) vessels the right size, and 4) pumps that keeps it all moving efficiently. Let’s look at each thing more closely.
Blood needs to flow freely like water. However, it is possible to make it thicken and flow less freely. Cornstarch will make water flow like Jell-o. This is not OK in the bloodstream. When blood starts to thicken, we’d better find a way to thin it back our again; but, what makes blood thicken in the first place?
Plasma proteins can become sticky and start gluing the red blood cells together. When this happens, the white blood cells start “eating” the protein stickiness off the red blood cells. This un-sticks the red blood cells and allows the blood to flow more freely again. If the white blood cells lack the enzyme tools they use to digest the protein stickiness, they won’t be able to un-stick the red blood cells. They will stay glued together like a stack of coins. This slows the flow of blood through the vessels. Stickiness makes the heart push harder. This contributing factor to high blood pressure can be resolved by taking “Proteolytic”, protein digesting, enzymes. The white blood cells will welcome the enzymes’ help to digest all the protein stickiness they’re trying to eat.
The amount of blood needed to fill the vessels is also critical because; example, if a water pipe doesn’t have enough water to fill it up completely, air pockets will form. The flow of water will stop momentarily then spurt, splash, stop again and blow water all over until the air gets out of the line; then the water flows smoothly again. Air bubbles in the blood vessels are life-threatening. They can stop the flow of blood at an intersection anywhere in the body causing the tissue beyond the intersection to die.
The body’s natural survival mechanism is programmed to keep that from happening. The diameter of the vessels becomes smaller as the amount of blood reduces. When the kidneys make urine, the skin sweats and the lungs blow moist air out of the body, the volume of blood reduces. The reduction in blood volume causes the heart to pump harder. The same amount of blood must be delivered to all the cells. The solution to reduction in blood volume is to drink water to replace what is lost in our urine, sweat and breath. Since we’re breathing, sweating and making urine every minute, drinking five swallows of water every hour will go a long way to reversing this cause of high blood pressure.
Another way to increase the size of the blood vessels is by increasing the production of the body’s tool it uses to open blood vessels. The tool is Nitric Oxide. The body makes it out of many fruit and vegetable juices. Beets are a significant contributor to the production of Nitric Oxide.
The heart is our main circulation pump, but it only controls ½ of the distance our blood travels. The heart pushes the blood away from itself. It does not pull the blood back in. It relies on thousands of little “heart helpers” to squeeze the blood vessels and push the blood back to it. These little “helpers” are the muscles. The blood vessels run through them, and as they contract, they squish the blood back to the heart. Consciously moving the muscles is a powerful way to improve total body circulation and destroy another cause of High blood pressure.
Take your blood pressure regularly and monitor your ability to … TAKE CHARGE! … Sylvia