Natural Remedies for High Blood Pressure

There’s a ’silent killer’ on the rise and since there aren’t any specific symptoms to alert an individual that they have high blood pressure, close to one-third of people with the condition don’t have a clue they are dealing with something that can cause a heart attack, stroke, heart failure, and failed kidneys. What’s worse is that the effects of high blood pressure can wreak havoc for many years without any indication that a problem exists.

What is High Blood Pressure?

In order to understand high blood pressure, you first need to know that blood pressure is the force within the arteries associated with your beating heart (called systolic pressure) and the heart when it is at rest (diastolic pressure). When measuring these values, milliliters of mercury (mm Hg) are used. If you have high blood pressure (also known as hypertension), then you are in danger of exhibiting blood pressure that is greater than or equal to 140 mm Hg systolic pressure or greater than or equal to 90 mm Hg diastolic pressure [1].

Causes and Symptoms

Recent numbers suggest that about one in every three adults in the United States has high blood pressure, and between 90 to 95% of all cases fail to show a cause. Individuals with unknown causes are diagnosed as having essential or primary hypertension. The remaining cases of high blood pressure patients do experience factors that lead to their condition. Secondary hypertension is often caused by abnormal kidneys, narrowed arteries, and structural deficiencies of the large blood vessel leaving the heart (aorta).

At times, people with high blood pressure may exhibit the following symptoms:

• Dizziness
• Blurry vision
• Nausea
• Headache

High Blood Pressure Natural Remedies

Just as certain herbs and supplements can treat high blood pressure, other selections can actually make matters worse. Try staying away from licorice, ephedra, Asian ginsing, and rosemary essential oil if you have been diagnosed with high blood pressure. However, to treat your condition with effective natural methods, consider the following suggestions:

a) Garlic:

If you suffer from mild high blood pressure, controlled studies have shown that garlic powder supplement can effectively reduce systolic and diastolic blood pressure. It is important to approach the use of garlic supplements with caution, as it does have the ability to thin the blood and could interact with other drugs one may take, such as Coumadin (warfarin).

b) Fish Oil:

Some people have lowered their blood pressure by incorporating fish oil into their diet.

c) Supplementation:

Sometimes, you just need a little boost, which is where supplementation comes in. Evidence has shown that adding calcium supplements to your daily regimen may reduce your systolic blood pressure. Potassium supplements could reduce both your systolic and diastolic blood pressure. You may also consider taking magnesium supplements to treat high diastolic blood pressure.

d) Traditional Chinese Medicine:

Traditional Chinese healers often linked high blood pressure with problems concerning the circulation of vital energy (called qi) in the body. With a combination of herbal treatments and acupuncture, some patients may find relief. Chinese medicine practitioners have also praised the water chestnut, turnip, Chinese celery, hawthorn berries, mung beans, and honey as possessing medicinal components that can ease high blood pressure.

e) Ginkgo [2]:

Take ginkgo biloba tablets or add ½ teaspoon of fluid extract to a glass of water for a twice daily remedy. Use this natural remedy in stretches of two to three months at a time.

f) Buckwheat:

Take the tablet form of buckwheat to aid circulation, decrease blood pressure, and prevent arteriosclerosis from setting in.

g) Vitamin E:

Include 400 IU of vitamin E on a daily basis.

h) Yoga:

So far, preliminary studies done on the effects of yoga on high blood pressure has shown promise in producing lower readings.

i) Folic Acid:

When it comes to the formation of red blood cells, folate serves as a necessary B vitamin and may help lower high blood pressure in some patients.

j) Biofeedback:

Biofeedback teaches people how to assume control over their internal body processes that have the potential to go a bit ‘haywire.’ The technique has been quite helpful for patients battling conditions, such as migraine headaches, chronic pain, and high blood pressure. While some people may choose direct blood pressure feedback or electromyography (associated with muscle tension) to treat their high blood pressure, keep in mind that thermal feedback (which measures skin temperature) and electrodermal activity feedback (that probes sweat responses) has proven more effective.

k) Prepare Hawthorn and Chrysanthemum Tea [3]:

Improving circulation in the coronary region, hawthorn promotes a more efficient heart, while chrysanthemum flowers relaxes the heart and encourages improved blood flow. Use the following recipe to treat mild conditions.

First, gather 30 grams of dried hawthorn flowering tops; 25 grams of Ja Hua (dried, prepared chrysanthemum flowers); 25 grams of dried linden flowers; and 20 grams of dried yarrow. Mix all of the herbs together and store in a dry, airtight container. Add two teaspoons of the mix to a tisane cup (or small teapot). Next, add a cup of freshly boiled water. Steep for 10 minutes, followed by a round of straining. Drink a teacup dose three times per day.

Resources

[1] http://www.americanheart.org/presenter.jhtml?identifier=2112
[2] The Encyclopedia of Medicinal Plants by Andrew Chevallier; pg. 301
[3] Home Herbal by Penelope Ody; pg. 108.

Do Animals Commit Suicide? A Scientific Debate

Forty years ago, Richard O'Barry watched Kathy, a dolphin in the 1960s television show Flipper, kill herself. Or so he says. She looked him in the eye, sank to the bottom of a steel tank and stopped breathing. The moment transformed the dolphin trainer into an animal-rights activist for life, and his role in The Cove, the Oscar-winning documentary about the dolphin-meat business in a small town in Japan, has transformed him into a celebrity.

"The suicide was what turned me around," says O'Barry. "The [animal entertainment] industry doesn't want people to think dolphins are capable of suicide, but these are self-aware creatures with a brain larger than a human brain. If life becomes so unbearable, they just don't take the next breath. It's suicide."

Animal suicide may seem absurd, yet the concept is as old as philosophy. Aristotle told a story about a stallion that leaped into an abyss after realizing it was duped into mating with its mother, and the topic was discussed by early Christian theologians and Victorian academics. "The questioning of animal suicide is essentially people looking at what it means to be human," says Duncan Wilson, a medical historian at the University of Manchester and co-author of a study in the March issue of the British journal Endeavour on the history of self-destructive animals. "The people talking about animal suicide today seem to be using it as a way to evoke sympathy for the plight of mistreated and captive animals."

Changes in how humans have interpreted animal suicide reflect shifting values about animals and our own self-destruction, the paper argues. The Romans saw animal suicide as both natural and noble; an animal they commonly reported as suicidal was one they respected, the horse. Then for centuries, discussion of animal suicide seems to have stopped. Christian thinkers like St. Thomas Aquinas deemed suicide sinful for humans and impossible for animals. "Everything naturally loves itself," wrote Aquinas in the 13th century. "The result being that everything naturally keeps itself in being."

In 19th century Britain, however, after Darwin demonstrated how humans evolved from animals, humane societies formed, vegetarianism and pets became popular, and reports of animal suicide resurfaced. The usual suspect this time was the dog. In 1845 the Illustrated London News reported on a Newfoundland who had repeatedly tried to drown himself: "The animal appeared to get exhausted, and by dint of keeping his head determinedly under water for a few minutes, succeeded at last in obtaining his object, for when taken out this time he was indeed dead."

Wilson's study provides that account of animal suicide and many others — that of a canvasback duck, a cat, pelicans, scorpions — but intentionally doesn't address the issue of whether these animals or any others are technically capable of ending their own lives. Thomas Joiner, a Florida State University psychologist, does take that stand. His new book, Myths About Suicide, links the suicidal tendencies of living creatures. "Across nature there seems to be the same kind of calculation," says Joiner. "Is my death worth more than my life? Suicides of all kinds involve this calculation, from bacteria and insects to conventional suicide deaths and even suicide terrorists."

The Endeavour paper points to Iberian folklore on suicidal scorpions; when surrounded by flames, they will sting themselves in the back. In the early 1880s in Britain, a debate on the topic blossomed after a London zoologist placed a scorpion in a glass container, administered chloroform and claimed he observed the animal trying to sting itself. To prove him wrong, the psychologist Conwy Lloyd Morgan set up a series of traps for the critters. "He surrounded them with fire, condensed sunbeams on their backs, heated them in a bottle, burned them with phosphoric acid, treated them with electric shocks and subjected them to 'general and exasperating courses of worry,' " notes the Endeavour article.

But concocting cruel experiments to prove far-fetched points, both then and now, has its critics. "I think often our conversations about animals tend to go to these weird extremes and act to conceal what we are doing to them every day," says Jonathan Safran Foer, whose new book, Eating Animals, relates his attempt to understand how animals become food. "Should we swat flies, is it possible that plants like it when we play classical music, can dogs commit suicide — all of these things may be interesting, but they have nothing to do with how we regularly interact with animals."

Foer says he recently watched The Cove and, like others, found the references to animal suicide fishy. "We don't need to make animals like humans in order to treat them with decency," he says. "If we just treated pigs like pigs and cows like cows, that would be sufficient."

Skateboarding owl is a hit

A barn owl that rides a skateboard has become a hit at its local shopping centre.

But contrary to expectation Alby is no night rider - instead he displays his wheely good skills in front of stunned shoppers in Folkestone, Kent.

Brian Maxted, 73, who runs Folkestone Owl Sanctuary, said he discovered Alby's unusual talent during a trip to the local shopping centre.

He said: "I often take some owls into town to try and get some donations from shoppers.

"I had the owls out one day last week and a young lad stopped to look at them.

"He put down his skateboard and Alby, who'd been fast asleep, saw it and jumped on.

"Someone pulled it along the ground and he loved it so much, we had to get him one of his own."

Alby, who is 13, has now developed his technique, which involves him swooping onto the board, using the momentum from his flight to push him along.

When the board comes to a stop, Alby takes off and flies in a small circle before re-landing on the board, pushing it along again.

Student Paul Lendon, 17, from Folkestone said: "I was stunned when I saw him riding along on his miniature board.

"I'm aware of the famous skateboarder Tony Hawk, but I've never before heard of Tony Owl."