Are you taking blood pressure tablets unnecessarily?

See this recent article commenting on a BMJ article about the ineffectiveness of blood pressure tablets.

Here is a quote from Professor Jerome Hoffman of UCLA and an expert in critical appraisal of medical literature, from the BMJ piece:

"We’ve long known that almost all benefit from treating severe hypertension comes with lowering BP [blood pressure] just a little. On the other hand, efforts to lower BP to ‘normal,’ typically requiring multiple drugs, are not only usually unsuccessful but produce more harm than good, since adverse effects of intensive treatment outweigh the minimal marginal benefit of a little more BP ‘control.’ Drug treatment of mild hypertension….may be of great value to drug makers, but it was almost predictable that it would provide little or no benefit for patients."

And another quote:

"David Cundiff, one of the authors of the Cochrane review has said that he “believes that the analysis should lead to dramatic changes in the way doctors treat mild hypertension, allowing patients to throw away their blood pressure pills and focus instead on far more effective as well as evidence based approaches…"

On Inside Health on Radio 4 on 21st August they too were discussing the over-diagnosis and over-treatment of high blood pressure:

 

"Dr Mark Porter asks whether doctors can try too hard in the early detection of disease and investigates the overdiagnosis of hypertension. This week he discovers that as many as 3 million people who have been told they have high blood pressure may not actually have it - could you be one of them?"

 

The programme found that there is indeed a large and growing problem of overdiagnosis and over-treatment for blood pressure. The general opinion was that it is usually better to avoid prescribing the blood pressure drugs, which of course have adverse side-effects, and instead advise patients about life-style changes that reduce high blood pressure. My own very high blood pressure years ago was dramatically and safely lowered by seriously reducing my intake of salt and salty food.

Minerals associated with lowering your blood pressure include potassium, magnesium and calcium

Minerals associated with lowering your blood pressure include potassium, magnesium and calcium. Sodium is the mineral associated with raised blood pressure and so intake of salt and salty food should be lowered if you suffer from hypertension/high blood pressure. - Helpful pages include Obesity and the Salt Connection and Minerals, Weight and Fluid/Fat Retention.

The meds that result in salt sensitivity don't just cause obesity; they damage every system in your body: heart, kidneys, liver, blood vessels, etc.

The many prescription drugs that result in salt sensitivity don't just cause morbid obesity, they damage every system in your body: heart, kidneys, liver, skin, blood vessels, metabolism, etc.

Drugs like tricyclic antidepressants, and like HRT and corticosteroids, and many other drugs, including anti-psychotics and anti-convulsants, cause relaxation of the muscles of the blood vessel walls, with sodium retention as a side-effect. This in turn leads to water retention because extra sodium/salt attracts water to itself. The relaxed state of the blood vessel walls and the impaired kidney function permit a greater blood volume, i.e. permit the incursion of more salt and its accompanying water. If the drugs are taken for long enough, the extra fluid in the body (salt water/fluid retention in the veins = extra blood volume) results both in higher blood pressure (because of the extra pressure on the walls of the blood vessels) and, obviously, in weight gain from the extra volume of blood. The blood vessel walls become weakened and the kidney function impaired by the extra blood volume to have to deal with. A general term for this sort of problem (not always caused by prescription drugs) is salt sensitivity. Since more and more drugs are being prescribed by the drug-oriented medical profession, more and more people are becoming sensitive to salt, and therefore gaining weight, especially if they eat a lot of processed food, well-known to contain a lot of added salt. (I’ve never understood or agreed with the usual claim that relaxation of the blood vessels lowers blood pressure. Maybe this is with people who are not sensitive to salt. – I don’t know.)

Extract from http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/sodium/NU00284

“Your kidneys naturally balance the amount of sodium stored in your body for optimal health. When your sodium levels are low, your kidneys essentially hold on to the sodium. When sodium levels are high, your kidneys excrete the excess in urine.

But if for some reason your kidneys can’t eliminate enough sodium, the sodium starts to accumulate in your blood. Because sodium attracts and holds water, your blood volume increases. Increased blood volume makes your heart work harder to move more blood through your blood vessels, which increases pressure in your arteries. Such diseases as congestive heart failure, cirrhosis and chronic kidney disease can make it hard for your kidneys to keep sodium levels balanced.

Some people’s bodies are more sensitive to the effects of sodium than are others. If you’re sodium sensitive, you retain sodium more easily, leading to fluid retention and increased blood pressure. The extra sodium can even lead to high blood pressure, which can lead to heart disease, stroke, kidney disease and congestive heart failure.”

Although the Mayo Clinic mentions arteries rather than veins, people who are extremely sensitive to salt, like me, are far more aware of swollen veins and the problems and pain they cause, since the changes are very obvious and visible, rather than problems with arteries, even if these are possibly more dangerous than the over-stretched, fragile, agonisingly painful veins.

New Study suggests Sunshine may help prevent Multiple Sclerosis

A new study in Australia suggests that obtaining Vitamin D through sun exposure may help prevent the onset of multiple sclerosis as well as diabetes, hypertension, cardiovascular diseases and some types of cancer.
Read article on the Daily Nexus website (University of California, Santa Barbara, USA)

Study suggests garlic capsules help to lower high blood pressure/hypertension

Read this BBC News webpage where there is a great deal more detail about this. Speaking for myself, I try to eat a few cloves of garlic a day and I believe it is doing me good. - A safe, rapid way to reduce high blood pressure naturally without using drugs (which always have undesirable side-effects), is to cut down on salt and salty food. This provides many other health benefits too. - Do yourself a favour and cut down on your salt intake. - You will feel so much better!

Clinicians should conform to the recommended protocol when prescribing steroids.

I quote extracts from a standard textbook in the section on steroids: "Electrolyte Balance. – This group of drugs leads to retention of sodium and water and loss of potassium through the kidneys. Oedema of the ankles and eventually hypertension may develop…The correct dose of a steroid is the minimum amount of drug required to produce the desired effect…Patients taking steroids should be seen regularly and the following points noted: General appearance – any evidence of Cushing-like appearance…Blood pressure…Blood electrolytes must be estimated in patients undergoing prolonged therapy with these drugs…A close watch should be kept for undue potassium loss or sodium retention…"

There should be a STATUTORY requirement for health professionals to ABIDE by strict rules with regard to prescribing and monitoring steroids and HRT. Then there would not be new victims created every year, as is presently the case.

When I was initially prescribed oral HRT it included a high (unknown to me) dose of oestrogen and I was kept on that dosage for years before my blood oestrogen levels were measured (at my insistence and privately at my financial cost, my G.P. (now retired) having falsely maintained that he was not allowed to get the levels measured) and were found to be DANGEROUSLY high. There had been NO routine monitoring and care whatsoever. I had been laughed at when I queried the weight gain, explaining that I was definitely not over-eating. - I was routinely assumed to be lying, and my anguished reports of pain, principally in my feet and in my swollen, blood-gorged breasts, were sneered at and I was regarded as a hypochondriac. My increasingly troubling high blood pressure went ignored and largely unrecorded until the intervention of a surgeon whom I consulted prior to having a hysterectomy. He had recognised immediately on seeing me that I had high blood pressure. (Why don't all doctors know about the connection between high blood pressure and a red face?)

My blood electrolytes were not measured until 1998, when I tackled the endocrinologist about her negligence – by which time I had been on HRT for over ten years!

The endocrinologist told me she knew NOTHING AT ALL about Sodium Retention! Well I contend that if a specialist knows nothing, and is content to know nothing, about the principal danger listed as a side-effect of a drug, the prescription of which is her responsibility, then it is a scandalous state of affairs. And if specialists don’t know (and, by implication, don’t care, since she had made no effort over many years to inform herself on the subject), it is unlikely that GPs are any better informed. My own GPs appeared to know nothing about it. And GPs are the main prescribers of HRT and other steroids.

Had I been correctly monitored as detailed in the protocol I would have been spared the nightmare weight gain that was oedema, and the high blood pressure, the intense, sustained pain of overstretched blood vessels and overstretched, ever-thinner skin, etc. If I had even just been given the VITAL information that to avoid/minimise the huge increase in the salt and water content of the bloodstream I needed to avoid salt and salty food, I could have been spared monumental unnecessary suffering and harm.

Even now, obese steroid victims and other obese victims of the injudicious prescribing of drugs that cause sodium and water retention are not being told that to lose some of the excess weight/fluid they carry round with them. they need to minimise their intake of salt and salty food. This critically important information would transform their lives. As well as reducing their overweight it would lower any high blood pressure, lower cholesterol (if anyone is bothered about it), reduce their risk of stroke, type 2 diabetes, heart disease, heart attack, dementia and cancer, and benefit their health in countless other ways too.

Note: I must STRESS that once a person with a salt problem lowers salt intake and loses weight, there needs to be a lifetime commitment to a lowered salt intake. If the previous salt intake is resumed, the weight will return because of the weakened, over-stretched veins. And it is very much more difficult to lose the weight a second time, because high Blood Volume damages the kidneys, which find it harder to deal with sodium.

Read about weight gain caused by steroids and HRT and

my Mensa article about Obesity and the Salt Connection and

the scandalous politics of the situation.

Scientists call for worldwide policy change on daily recommendations for vitamin D intake

International experts have again called out for an increase in daily recommendations for Vitamin D, which they say is crucial to reduce the risk of a host of diseases. The latest call comes from scientists in Europe and the US, who say that higher intake levels of the vitamin could help protect against conditions such as childhood rickets, adult osteomalacia, cancer, autoimmune type-1 diabetes, hypertension, cardiovascular disease, obesity and muscle weakness. Writing in the July 28 issue of Experimental Biology and Medicine, the authors propose worldwide policy changes to increase recommended intake levels of the sunshine vitamin. This, they said, would reduce the frequency of certain diseases, increase longevity and reduce medical costs.
Read article at nutraingredients.com

Reduce Hypertension by Avoiding Salt and Salty Food:

You can reduce high blood pressure by seriously cutting down on salt and salty food. Especially if you would prefer to avoid taking drugs, then I do urge you to cut down on salt/sodium and salty food. - And I don't just mean sprinkle less onto your meal or use less in cooking; I mean try to eat fresh food, instead of processed food, takeaways and ready meals, because these processed foodstuffs have usually had a lot of salt added to them by the manufacturers. If you feel you have to buy some processed food, then look carefully at the labels to choose a pack/tin with lower salt/sodium level.

For fuller information about this, see Sodium in foods

Vitamin D deficiency in younger women increases risk of hypertension

Vitamin D deficiency in younger women increases risk of high blood pressure
Vitamin D deficiency in premenopausal women may increase the risk of developing systolic hypertension 15 years later, according to research reported at the American Heart Association's 63rd High Blood Pressure Research Conference.
Read article at physorg.com

Cutting down on salt and salty food reduces high blood pressure.

Omega-3 may improve blood pressure in kidney disease patients

A combination of omega-3 fatty acids and coenzyme Q10 (CoQ10) may decrease blood pressure and heart rate in kidney disease patients, says a new study. People with chronic kidney disease (CKD), which increases the risk of heart disease two- to 50-fold, experienced improvements in both blood pressure and heart rate following supplementation with four grams of omega-3 fatty acids, according to findings published in the Journal of Hypertension. Furthermore, when taken in combination with coenzyme Q10 the blood pressure reducing benefits were enhanced, despite CoQ10 alone not being associated with any improvements on its own, report researchers from University of Western Australia and Royal Perth Hospital.
Read article at nutraingredients.com
Comment: The effect upon blood pressure obtained by combining coenzyme Q10 with omega-3 fatty acids is an example of nutrient synergy. The concept of nutrient synergy maximizes the health benefits of micronutrients because of the discovery that they work best in "teams". Minimising salt/sodium intake also reduces blood pressure and reduces the risk of heart disease.

Healthy lifestyle lowers risk of cardiovascular disease

Healthy lifestyle lowers risk of heart disease. - This can't come as a surprise to anyone, surely? - Statistical back-up here: blog on the Boston Globe

Good Nutrition is the Best Physician.

Lose weight, reduce your risk of most cancers, high blood pressure, type 2 diabetes, heart disease, heart attack, vascular dementia, stroke, osteopenia, osteoporosis, hypercholesterolaemia, depression, liver damage and kidney problems, and improve your health in many other ways without drugs, hunger or expense by eating less salt! - Try it! - You will feel so much better!

See my website www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk
The site does not sell anything and has no banners or sponsors or adverts - just helpful information.

Read my Mensa article on Obesity and the Salt Connection

And see Sodium in foods

FAT RETENTION

amitriptyline

prescribed steroids and HRT

Vulnerable groups

See advice for pregnant mothers

Children and Obesity

Associated health conditions

The Fatter You Are, the More Important it is that You Cut Down on Salt.

Salt is more harmful to fat people than it is to slim or average-size people. - You will feel so much better and have more energy if you cut down on salt.

Lose weight, reduce your risk of most cancers, high blood pressure, type 2 diabetes, heart disease, heart attack, vascular dementia, stroke, osteopenia, osteoporosis, hypercholesterolaemia, depression, liver and kidney problems, and improve your health in many other ways without drugs, hunger or expense by eating less salt! - Try it!

See my website www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk
The site does not sell anything and has no banners or sponsors or adverts - just helpful information.

Read my Mensa article on Obesity and the Salt Connection

Sodium in foods

http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/story.html - my 'political' page

http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/socio.html - social and economic considerations

amitriptyline

prescribed steroids and HRT

See advice for pregnant mothers

Children and Obesity

Associated health conditions

and FAT RETENTION

FSA wants salt levels to be further reduced

The Telegraph reports that the Food Standard Agency is urging the Food Industry to cut salt levels further in order to save avoidable deaths.

In my opinion, both the Food Standards Agency and the Food Industry need to pull their little socks up and get real about this vitally important public health measure. - Salt reduction in bread and other processed foods is going at the speed of a slug on tranquillisers...)o:

Lose weight, reduce your risk of most cancers, high blood pressure, type 2 diabetes, heart disease, heart attack, vascular dementia, stroke, osteopenia, osteoporosis, hypercholesterolaemia, depression, liver and kidney problems, and improve your health in many other ways without drugs, hunger or expense by eating less salt! - Try it!

See my website www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk
The site does not sell anything and has no banners or sponsors or adverts - just helpful information.

Read my Mensa article on Obesity and the Salt Connection

http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/story.html - my 'political' page

http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/socio.html - social and economic considerations

amitriptyline

prescribed steroids and HRT

See advice for pregnant mothers

Children and Obesity

Associated health conditions

and FAT RETENTION

Hypertension may be lowered by a protein in yellow peas.

The Telegraph has an article about the discovery of a protein in peas - a protein that lowers high blood pressure and is of especial benefit when high blood pressure accompanies kidney disease.

In fact all vegetables and fruits, because of their high potassium content, help to lower high blood pressure, though this report about a protein in peas must mean that there is an additional benefit conferred by peas. The reason potassium lowers high blood pressure is that potassium displaces sodium in the body. The fastest way to reduce high blood pressure is to eat less salt/sodium and salty food, so make sure your peas and your other vegetables are not salted.

Lose weight, reduce your risk of most cancers, high blood pressure, type 2 diabetes, heart disease, heart attack, vascular dementia, stroke, osteopenia, osteoporosis, hypercholesterolaemia, depression, liver and kidney problems, and improve your health in many other ways without drugs, hunger or expense by eating less salt! - Try it! - You will feel so much better! See my website www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk
The site does not sell anything and has no banners or sponsors or adverts - just helpful information.

Read my Mensa article on Obesity and the Salt Connection

And see Sodium in foods

Useful information regarding your choice of bottled water

Variation in the Mineral Content of Commercially Available Bottled Waters: Implications for Health and Disease

This is an interesting and informative webpage with content indicated by its title. Although the article is dated August 1998 the information is mostly of the 'timeless' kind, I'd say.

Extract:

"A wide variation exists in the mineral content of bottled waters that are commercially available in North America and Europe: magnesium content ranges from 0 to 126 mg per liter, sodium from 0 to 1,200 mg per liter, and calcium from 0 to 546 mg per liter. Evidence links magnesium deficiency to sudden death, excess sodium to hypertension, and calcium deficiency to osteoporosis. Drinking water that is high in magnesium and calcium and low in sodium will help individuals achieve the recommended daily allowances of these minerals. Because wide variations exist in the mineral contents of commercially available bottled waters, understanding the potential beneficial and harmful effects of these minerals will provide valuable information on which water to choose."

It's always a good idea to check the mineral levels by looking at the nutrition information on the label. And remember that for the body to utilise calcium effectively, it needs a sufficiency of vitamin D, some good sources of which are sunshine, oily fish, liver, cod liver oil and milk.

Lose weight, reduce your risk of most cancers, high blood pressure, type 2 diabetes, stroke, heart disease, heart attack, vascular dementia, osteopenia, osteoporosis, hypercholesterolaemia, depression, liver and kidney problems, and improve your health in many other ways without drugs, hunger or expense by eating less salt! - Try it! - You will feel so much better!

Read my Mensa article on Obesity and the Salt Connection

And see Sodium in foods

Children and Obesity

Associated health conditions

and FAT RETENTION

Easy drug-free ways to lower your high blood pressure/hypertension. - Eat less salt/sodium and more fruit.

Lose weight, reduce your risk of most cancers, high blood pressure, type 2 diabetes, stroke, heart disease, heart attack, vascular dementia, osteopenia, osteoporosis, hypercholesterolaemia, depression, liver and kidney problems, and improve your health in many other ways without drugs or expense by eating less salt! - Try it! - You will feel so much better!

Read my Mensa article on Obesity and the Salt Connection

And see Sodium in foods and

amitriptyline

prescribed steroids and HRT

See advice for pregnant mothers

Associated health conditions

and FAT RETENTION

Beware that Subway sandwich! - It is laden with salt!

Supermarket sandwiches have 'more fat than two McDonald's burgers'
Article in the Telegraph

Extracts:

"Channel 4's Dispatches programme examined products from five of Britain's largest sandwich companies - Boots, Greggs, Subway, Pret a Manger and Marks and Spencer.

Researchers measured the levels of fat, saturates and salt in 100 sandwiches using the Food Standards Agency's traffic light system.

According to the FSA, a red light indicates that the food is "high in something we should be trying to cut down on" and should only be eaten occasionally."

"Subway came bottom of the list in terms of salt content with 93 per cent of the sandwiches tested earning a red light.

The retailer's foot-long 'Meatball Marinara' contained 9.4g of salt, equivalent to 18 packets of ready-salted crisps.

Pret a Manger came third, followed by M&S and Greggs. Boots again faired best, with 7 per cent of its sandwiches earning a red light for salt."

If you are overweight or have high blood pressure/hypertension you need to avoid salt and salty food.

Lose weight, reduce your risk of most cancers, high blood pressure, type 2 diabetes, stroke, heart disease, angina, vascular dementia, osteopenia, osteoporosis, hypercholesterolaemia, depression, liver and kidney problems, and improve your health in many other ways without drugs or expense by eating less salt! - Try it! - You will feel so much better!

See my website http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/.html (The site does not sell anything and has no banners or sponsors or adverts - just helpful information.)

Read my Mensa article on Obesity and the Salt Connection

See Sodium in foods

See also FAT RETENTION

Poor maternity care is causing deaths in Britain

Report: poor care in half of maternity deaths

Extracts from the Telegraph:

"Half of all women who die during pregnancy or after giving birth have been victims of poor quality care from doctors and midwives, a report claims.

Sub-standard care contributed to 149 of the 295 maternity deaths between 2003 and 2005, according to the study by the Confidential Enquiry into Maternal and Child Health (Cemach).

In many cases, mothers could have been saved if common medical conditions had been recognised earlier, it is alleged. Some women died because doctors and midwives were ignorant of "basic clinical knowledge and skills".

The review of deaths in pregnancy and childbirth, entitled Saving Mothers' Lives, also finds that many women were not seen by a senior consultant at all, even those who were in a critical care unit.

It calls for better communication between staff to cut the number of avoidable deaths. Many consultations are now carried out over the telephone, meaning problems can be overlooked, it suggests.

The report, published today, says: "The apparent lack of basic clinical knowledge and skills among some doctors, midwives and other health professionals, senior or junior, was one of the leading causes of potentially avoidable mortality."

"Gwyneth Lewis, the editor of the report, said: "Some women coming in for maternity care had arms so big that the blood pressure band couldn't go around them, and operation tables couldn't take their weight."

For the first time, cardiac problems are identified as the biggest single cause of death in maternity.

Around 16 per cent of those who died had heart disease, which is often associated with obesity. As a result of the report's findings, Cemach is to launch a three-year national inquiry into obesity in pregnancy."

I could save them their three-year national inquiry into obesity in pregnancy! - Here is the explanation:

Obesity and pregnancy

Pregnant women are at increased risk from obesity because of hormone changes during pregnancy - e.g. higher oestrogen levels. - Oestrogen is not just a sex hormone; it is a steroid, and in common with many other steroids, when its concentration in the blood increases, the walls of the veins relax and become more vulnerable to the incursion of extra salt/sodium and its accompanying water. - This extra water is, of course, a form of fluid retention: obesity is caused by fluid retention brought about by sodium/salt sensitivity. These pregnant women have become more sensitive to salt/sodium. This is why dieting does not work. The truth should be told - namely that to lose weight it is necessary to give up dieting and concentrate on reducing salt intake. To avoid unhealthy weight gain and many other health problems, it is very important that pregnant mothers keep their salt intake low.

Lose weight, reduce your risk of most cancers, high blood pressure, diabetes, stroke and heart problems, and improve your health in many other ways without drugs or expense by eating less salt! - Try it! - You will feel so much better!

See my website http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/.html (The site does not sell anything and has no banners or sponsors or adverts - just helpful information.)

http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/steroids.html

http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/ami.html

vulnerable groups

How to Lose weight!

Children and Obesity

Read my Mensa article on Obesity and the Salt Connection

See Sodium in foods and

Associated health conditions and

http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/story.html - my 'political' page

Wider implications of the flawed theory that excess calorie intake causes obesity

I can be contacted via my website if you need my further help. My help is free.

Are you overweight/obese and tired of people telling you that you are greedy and should be eating less?

A person who gains weight has a higher calorie requirement. There are two reasons for this. Having to carry a greater mass around and service a more massive body uses more calories. And having a bigger surface area means greater heat loss, since heat lost is proportional to surface area. - A greater calorie requirement results in greater appetite/hunger, so, really, overweight people need to eat more than people of normal weight. If the overweight eat insufficient calories (ie if they 'diet') they may lose weight, but it is at the cost of being hungry. There has never been the slightest evidence that the practice of fewer calories in and more calories out by way of exercise reduces obesity! - It is often confidently stated that fat will be lost by doing this. - Sadly, what is more often lost is lean tissue, usually an irreversible adverse effect.
The result of the misunderstanding of the cause of obesity is the well-known fact that over 95% of dieters actually gain weight in the long term! - They cannot be expected to go hungry all the time. - Nor would staying hungry all the time benefit them. - With insufficient calories for the body's needs, the body feeds on itself. - The skin becomes thinner; the bones become less dense; there is some hair loss, etc.
Contrast this with the safe, effective, fast way to lose excess weight - by eating less sodium. - Eating less sodium releases some of the excess water held in the blood stream. This lowers the blood pressure and, significantly, lowers the weight. - Weighing less results in a lower calorie requirement so very gradually less food is eaten and this becomes a virtuous circle because less food eaten results in lower sodium intake.
In societies in which no salt is eaten (what some might describe as undeveloped or uncivilised societies) there is no obesity and no hypertension.
The cavemen and women who were our ancestors lived for millennia without added salt. Our bodies evolved on a low sodium and high potassium intake. The modern diet has reversed this to high sodium and low potassium. The intake of salt has massively increased in recent years - as has the incidence of obesity.
I submit that the universal 'slimming' advice - to eat fewer calories/less fat and take more exercise - is a major cause of obesity. - All that is usually necessary to lose weight is to eat less salt/sodium. This is a drug-free, cost-free course of action. There are no hunger pangs and no adverse side-effects. It requires no visits to the doctor or to the gym and it WILL work.
Lose weight by eating less salt!-Go on!-Try it! My website www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk provides more details and advice.

Warning over rising numbers of high blood pressure cases

Warning over rising numbers of high blood pressure cases - Guardian

Extract:

"The number of people suffering from high blood pressure worldwide is expected to rise to more than 1.5 billion over next 20 years, a new report shows.

Research in the Lancet medical journal warns that that people living in developed countries have a 90% chance of lifetime risk of developing high blood pressure.

The article says that in 2000 there was an estimated 972 million adults living with high blood pressure around the world. This is expected to rise to 1.56 billion by 2025.

"Lifestyle factors, such as physical inactivity, a salt-rich diet with highly processed and fatty foods, and alcohol and tobacco use, are at the heart of this increased disease burden, which is spreading at an alarming rate from developed countries to emerging economies such as India and China," the research states."

A major cause of high blood pressure is the reckless over-prescribing of pharmaceutical drugs, often in high dose. Many of these drugs (eg corticosteroids like prednisone and prednisolone, HRT, tricyclic antidepressants like amitriptyline, and many other drugs) cause high blood pressure because they weaken the walls of the blood vessels, which then become vulnerable to the incursion of excess salt/sodium and the water it attracts to itself. - So these prescribed drugs are the cause of salt sensitivity and drug-induced weight gain. - See http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/steroids.html

Lower your blood pressure and lose weight by eating less salt! Go on! - Try it! - You will feel so much better!
How to Lose weight!

See my website http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/.html
(The site does not sell anything and has no banners or sponsors or adverts - just helpful information.)

Read my Mensa article on Obesity and the Salt Connection

See Sodium in foods and

Associated health conditions and

http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/story.html - my 'political' page

http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/socio.html - social and economic considerations

I can be contacted via my website if you need my further help. My help is free.