Half the people over 60 are concerned! More than a billion people; 20% of the total population, 30% of thirty years from now.
Just as it happens with water, if the blood pressure is too high, ruptures, damages, leaks, flooding may occur on your arteries as they would in your home.
But why does it get too high? No one really knows. The pressure is said to be “essential.” The only treatment is to prescribe chemical antihypertensives. Sometimes, one is not enough so it will be necessary to prescribe two, three (tri-therapy) or even four of such allopathic products.
All that because that damned blood pressure may damage all organs beginning with the heart (which serves as a pump and may in that case double its size!), but also the kidneys, the retinas, etc.
Imagine a car in which the engine size would increase or, better said, in which a bigger engine would be needed and installed because it runs as if the driver had forgotten to release the handbrake, or if it carried permanently a thousand pounds of cement or, again, if it towed another vehicle.
Two measures for the blood pressure:
-the maxima called “systolic” when the heart impulses the blood
-the minima, called “diastolic” between two impulses.
In France, the unit is the centimeter of mercury, elsewhere the millimeter. So we get either 12/7 or 120/70. A long time ago, in the 19th century, it was the weight of a column of mercury that stopped the blood flow and thus measured the pressure. In physics, a pressure is measured by dividing a mass—i.e. a weight—by the surface it presses against. Atmospheric pressure is the weight of the column of air above us.
This being a didactic book, let me repeat that H.B.P. will also damage our eyes, our kidneys, our brain… All our organs are valuable. How can we avoid such a situation?
A general practitioner does not have much time to explain things to his patients. Since you are interested in your health, I will take the time.
It is well known that salt (sodium chloride, NaCl) aggravates H.B.P. Sodium will retain water in the inner surface of your arteries thus thickening them.
Afro-Americans, descendants from black populations imported from Africa to work in America very often suffer from H.B.P. Their ancestors fed mainly on salt meat and fish (mainly pork in the U.S., codfish in the Antilles), proteins that keep well in warm climates and are necessary to hard-working people. Today, salt codfish has practically disappeared because of “overfishing” but salt meat is still strong in sales. Heredity has been at work over many generations and today a person whose four grandparents have H.B.P. will probably also suffer from it even if he or she avoids eating salted food.
Today, there is salt in cheese—very advertised—, bread, canned food, delicatessen meats, smoked salmon… Salt shakers are on most restaurant tables and waiters often forget asking you if it’s OK before abundantly sprinkling with salt your french fries.
What’s more, excess salt consumption accelerates ageing.
And don’t forget soda water and soft drinks. They contain sodium bicarbonate. When absorbed in excess, it is just as dangerous as Sodium
Chloride!
How did salt get into the sea? Through the leaching of continents by rainwater. The Na+ sodium ion is the most soluble element on Earth and the streaming of water has been carrying it to the sea for billions of years. Ocean water contains approximately 30g of salt per liter, our blood only 9g. For the record, the Dead Sea contains 400g and the Baltic Sea between 2 and 10g.
Overconsumption of salt in France is three times the daily needs of an individual: 15g to 18g daily instead of 5g to 6g.
Fruits, vegetables and fresh fish are particularly rich in K+ (potassium), an ion also abundant in our cells. It is therefore easy to conceive the right diet. Easy to conceive but not always easy to follow when you eat in a group
or just lazily eat what advertising tells you to eat.
A long time ago, in France, there was a tax on salt (the “gabelle”) and the king’s customs officers were in charge of watching the frontiers to prevent trafficking between France and the neighboring countries where the tax could be higher, or lower, or nonexistent. I think it would be a “healthy” tax to restore it, in order to reduce salt consumption (for once I advocate a tax!). In those times, salt (and spices) was the main preservative for food: there were no freezers, no fridges, no chemical preservatives, no pasteurization, no canned food, no sterilizing…
In Normandy farms, butter, abundant in May, was then kept in terracotta or stoneware jars until winter. It was then given to agricultural laborers, frequently too salted … so they wouldn’t eat too much of it! Imagine what stinginess this showed… That butter couldn’t be compared to the rather nice “beurre demi-sel” you can buy today (half-salted). Salted butter and
salted codfish were then inedible as they were.
To reduce salt consumption the best you can do is to braise or steam vegetables. When half-cooked, they keep their taste and color, stay crunchy, “al dente” as Italians say, and quite presentable. They can be agreeably supplemented with oil, lemon, mustard, garlic, parsley, basil or any other spice.
A British research (2008) has shown that raw red beet juice lowers blood pressure by one point even when it is normal. Since then, many patients have been able to lower it or stop their intake of allopathic drugs by drinking a glass of it every morning on an empty stomach and after keeping it a few seconds in the mouth. Right now, several brands of bottled juice (lactic fermented or not) are on sale in organic shops only.
Since I wrote this book years ago, iItake fresh beetroot with an extractor of vegetable juice. In the case of beetroot, it suppose to be drink a quarter of an hour after extraction.
Excess abdominal grease causes a number of severe pathologies among which H.B.P. Gentlemen’s abdominal perimeter should not exceed 102 cm. For ladies it’s much less: 88 cm. It is necessary to lose that “bad grease.”
Practically, the best is to measure ombilical circonference must be under :
Medecines Plurielles :https://drleborgne.wordpress.com/ 