What is high blood pressure?
The name says it all: high blood pressure is blood that is flowing through your arteries at higher than normal pressures.
High blood pressure, however, means consistent readings above the normal range of 120/80.
Causes
- Age: as we age, our blood pressure increases. If you have a poor diet, smoke or drink excessively, or eat unhealthy food, the risk increases for developing this disease.
- Sleep apnoea: is the cessation of airflow during sleep preventing air from entering the lungs caused by an obstruction, resulting in increased blood pressure and stress on the cardiovascular system.
- Obesity: being overweight is linked to so many higher blood culprits. For instance, sedentary lifestyle, poor diet, increased sodium levels and raised insulin levels, all prompt conditions like diabetes, heart attack, and stroke.
- Sedentary lifestyle: long-term sedentary lifestyle, in other words, a lack of exercise, which leads to weight gain and undue pressure on the heart.
- Drugs, alcohol, and smoking: drinking excessive amounts of alcohol, smoking or using recreational drugs can put stress on the heart and arteries.
- Poor diet: high blood pressure and heart conditions are linked to obesity and diabetes are linked to sugar and high carb diets.
- Hormonal conditions: some hormonal diseases such as Cushing’s syndrome can result in hypertension.
- Kidney disease: when triggered when adrenal glands secrete too much cortisol hormone, which elevates the flight response and increase blood pressure.
- Others: some cancers, pregnancy.
Link between high blood pressure and insulin resistance
Benefits of a Low Carbohydrate High Fat Diet For Metabolic Syndrome
Multiple studies on low-carbohydrate diets show improved blood pressure and more improvements than on other diets. As a bonus, a low-carbohydrate diet also usually leads to weight loss and improved blood sugar levels. The LCHF diet has been shown to be safe and effective for people with high cholesterol, diabetes, and non-alcoholic fatty liver disease.
In fact, clinical studies have shown that Low Carbohydrate High Fat (LCHF) diets effectively lower blood sugar, triglycerides, insulin, and saturated fat. They also can help reduce blood pressure and weight and even increase levels of good cholesterol.
LCHF diets inherently increase the relative amount of protein and fat consumed per day. These diets are primarily made up of leafy green vegetables, nuts, fish, eggs, seeds, unprocessed meats, dairy, and plant oils. While it may seem counter-intuitive that consuming more fatty foods would cause weight loss, this is not the case.
LCHF diets have been known to decrease hunger resulting in an overall decrease in daily caloric intake. It has also been proposed that LCHF diets provide a specific metabolic advantage. The increase in dietary protein has led some to worry that kidney function could be impaired. To date, there has not been any evidence to suggest these negative effects occur in people with normal kidney function including diabetics.
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The American College of Sports Medicine makes similar recommendations
But you don’t have to run marathons. Increasing your activity level can be as simple as:
- using the stairs
- walking instead of driving
- doing household chores
- gardening
- going for a bike ride
- playing a team sport
A 2014 review on exercise and lowering blood pressure found that there are many combinations of exercise that can lower blood pressure.
These exercises include:
- aerobic exercise
- resistance training
- high-intensity interval training
- short bouts of exercise throughout the day
- walking 10,000 steps a day
It is thought that when the body produces too much insulin and leptin in response to a higher-carb diet, it causes blood pressure to increase