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High Blood Pressure: What You Need to Know – Low Carb vs. Low Salt
The next disease of refined carb consumption is high blood pressure. Basically, INSULIN causes the high blood pressure.
So what happens?
- You eat carbohydrates.
- The carbohydrates increase the insulin.
- And it is the insulin that increases your blood pressure.
Step, by step, by step…
The Insulin causes three things to happen to increase your blood pressure:
1. Insulin stimulates the Kidney to hold on salt.
– The more salt your kidneys hold on to – the higher the blood pressure.
2. Insulin causes the kidneys to lose magnesium.
– Magnesium is supposed to relax to blood vessel and lower your blood pressure.
– So as you lose your magnesium, the blood vessels clamp down, and this raises the blood pressure.
3. Insulin directly stimulates the sympathetic nervous system.
– This causes the fight or flight to response – immediately raising the blood pressure.
Cut the Salt for High Blood Pressure? Not Exactly…
But you might be thinking, “Wait a minute! My Doctor told me I had to cut the salt, right!”
How many of you have heard that? “You Need to Cut the Salt?”
Did you know, if you cut the salt in your diet by half (that’s right, cut the salt in your diet to 1/2 of normal), you can expect your systolic blood pressure (the top number on your blood pressure) to go down by only 4 points on average. That’s right, cut the salt in your diet by half, and the top number of your blood pressure can go down an average of 4 points.
What About Low Carb for High Blood Pressure?
By contrast, if you cut the refined carbohydrates out your diet, your systolic (top number) blood pressure can go down 20 points!
So which one causes high blood pressure?
- Is it salt or refined carbohydrates?
- It’s refined carbohydrates!
This idea that salt causes high blood pressure is essentially from flawed science.
The idea came because they studied a population that immigrated to the mainland from an island. On the mainland, they were introduced to a “western diet.” In the study, they asked the people who immigrated, “Do you eat more salt than you used to?” And the answer was “yes!” And they studied their diet, and there was more salt in the diet. So they thought they had the final answer.
But that was the only question they asked…
This is similar to what I was taught in medical school. Essentially, they warned us that studies (not “good” studies) can be constructed in such a way to show almost any outcome. In fact, when I was a medical school, they showed us a study that demonstrated polio was highly associated with ice cream consumption. Therefore, one might conclude, that was ice cream that causes polio!
The truth is polio is not caused by ice cream consumption. Polio is an infection caused by a virus, but polio was spread in summer when kids ate more ice cream. So the point is this, if “ice cream consumption” is the only question that you ask, and they say “yes,” you may erroneously come to the conclusion that ice cream causes polio (when it does not).
Got High Blood Pressure? Your Doctor Has Pills for You…
But if you’ve got high blood pressure… your doctor has pills for you!
He’s got hydrochlorothiazide, Lisinopril, Diovan, Atenolol, Bystolic, and over 200 other blood pressure medications. But the choice is yours. You can take all these pills, or you can Cut the Killer Carbs.
So What’s My Blood Pressure?
Once again, this is my blood pressure, before and after I adopted a low-carb diet.
In 2011, my systolic (top number) blood pressure is 142.
In 2013, my systolic (top number) blood pressure is 126.*
*Individual results may vary.
How did I do that? What pills did I take?
None!
I just Cut the Killer Carbs, and so can you!
