blood pressure

The number-one risk factor for death in the world (according to the Global Burden of Disease Study, the most comprehensive and systematic analysis of the causes of death ever undertaken) is high blood pressure. Also known as hypertension, high blood pressure reportedly lays waste to nine million people worldwide every year. It kills so many people because it may contribute to deaths from a variety of causes, including aneurysms, heart attacks, heart failure, kidney failure, and stroke.

Increased blood pressure may put a strain on the heart and damage the sensitive blood vessels in our eyes and kidneys, cause bleeding in the brain, and even lead certain arteries to balloon and rupture. The fact that hypertension is able to damage so many organ systems and increase the risk of heart disease and stroke, two of our leading killers, explains why it is the number-one killer risk factor worldwide.

As you age, your blood pressure tends to get higher and higher. Is high blood pressure, like wrinkles or gray hair, just an inevitable consequence of aging? We’ve known for nearly a century that this isn’t true, based on studies of population studies in areas like rural China where average blood pressures remained around the ideal of 110/70 their entire lives. Their plant-based diets may have played a factor given that the only population in the Western world that enjoys such low average pressures may be those eating strictly plant-based.

So high blood pressure may be a choice: We can continue eating the artery-bursting Western diet, or we can choose to take off the pressure by centering our diet around unprocessed (no added sodium) plant foods. Eliminating humanity’s primary risk factor for death may be simple. No drugs, no scalpels. Just forks.

For substantiation of any statements of fact from the peer-reviewed medical literature, please see the associated videos below.

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All Videos for Blood Pressure

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One of the most popular herbs in traditional Chinese medicine, astragalus root is marketed as a “life-prolonging” tonic.

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Those eating more plant-based diets have lower risk of having a stroke, including both bleeding and clotting strokes.

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Healthy plant-based diets appear to help reduce the risk of severe COVID-19 and getting infected in the first place, even independent of comorbidities.

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What are the pros and cons of plant-based eating?

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Anti-inflammatory diets can be effective in alleviating chronic pain syndromes.

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Why Don’t Health Insurers Encourage Healthier Eating?

Why don’t more big payors in health care embrace plant-based eating?

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Healthy kidneys are required for potassium excretion. If you aren’t sure if you’re at risk, ask your doctor about getting your kidney function tested.

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Are Potassium Chloride Salt Substitutes Effective?

Is potassium chloride win-win by decreasing sodium intake and increasing potassium intake?

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A staggering 99.99 percent of Americans fail to get the minimum recommended potassium intake (despite it being perhaps only half of our natural intake) and stay below the recommended sodium intake (even though it may be twice our natural intake).

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If you eat potatoes when they’re cold, as in potato salad, or chilled and reheated, you can get a nearly 40 percent lower glycemic impact.

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Do Potatoes Increase the Risk of High Blood Pressure and Death?

Do potato eaters live longer or shorter lives than non-potato eaters?

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Prunes, figs, and exercise are put to the test as natural home remedies for constipation.

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Plant-Based Eating Score Put to the Test

How can you get a perfect diet score?

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The American Medical Association has passed a resolution encouraging healthy plant-based food options be available in hospitals.

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Having a so-called normal cholesterol in a society where it’s normal to drop dead of a heart attack isn’t necessarily a good thing.

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What is the dirty little secret of drugs for lifestyle diseases? If patients knew the truth of how little these drugs actually worked, almost no one would agree to take them.

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For three cents a day, black cumin may improve cholesterol and triglyceride levels, blood pressure, and blood sugar control, as well as accelerate the loss of body fat.

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Is heme just an innocent bystander in the link between meat intake and breast cancer, diabetes, heart disease, stroke, and high blood pressure?

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Plant-Based Protein: Are Pea and Soy Protein Isolates Harmful?

What are the different impacts of plant protein versus animal protein, and do the benefits of plant proteins translate to plant protein isolates?

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Increased risk of metabolic complications starts at an abdominal circumference of 31.5 inches in women and 37 inches in most men, though it’s closer to 35.5 inches for South Asian, Chinese, and Japanese men.

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Losing weight can reduce sciatica, hypertension, and cancer risk, and reverse type 2 diabetes.

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