High blood pressure cases double in 30 years

https://taipeitimes.com/News/world/archives/2021/08/26/2003763267

by triple_m • 5 years ago

88 116 5 years ago

taipeitimes.com

bufferoverflow• 5 years ago

I suspect social networks have a lot to do with it.

kozikow• 5 years ago

Much more likely it's obesity, highly processed foods, lack of physical activity due to sitting at the computer, etc.

sneak2• 5 years ago

Most people spend most of their time sitting at computers on various forms of social networks, so you're both right.

jhrozek2• 5 years ago

The factors you mention definitely don’t help but you’d be surprised how much of HBP is just genetics. I’m slim, run at least three times a week and ran a marathon two years ago, don’t eat much meat, rarely drink, non smoker and yet I have HBP and had to start taking pills recently. In my case it doesn’t help that both parents suffer from the condition.

But saying that you have HBP == you live an unhealthy lifestyle is just not true.

sjosund• 5 years ago

Or, as they say in the actual article, "...reflects concerning worldwide trends in unhealthy lifestyle choices such as high fat, sugar, salt and alcohol intake, sedentary lifestyles with avoidance of exercise and smoking”.

mdp2021• 5 years ago

And, as they were so close to writing, "reflections concerning worldwide trends".

The quality of thought in many environments and contexts can show as severely declined. Exposure is with certainty a possible factor impacting on blood pressure, whether it is brought to topic or not (one can perceive it). It is still unhealthy lifestyle.

solmag• 5 years ago

This is actually a good observation, unreasonably downvoted. Obesity appears to be a viral disease, looking at its growth. Now the question to answer is, is the viral spread of obesity explained by social contagion or by bacteria.

salex892• 5 years ago

I don't know if this analysis also included changes in what is considered hypertension. They've changed multiple times, every time decreasing the limit. Sure, it would be great to have 110/70 every time, but even for a healthy and young person I find myself borderline.

hellbannedguy• 5 years ago

Take it yourself for 30 days. Don't count on that one visit to the doctor's office.

HighlandSpring• 5 years ago

Just want to expand on how I feel this alone is most of the reason why accessing the right healthcare is such a pain. This quick fix culture of "let's get you assessed and we'll have you on some kind of pills in no time. Oh look, it's time for my lunch break!"

Similarly, I've noticed dogma in psychiatry discouraging of "self-diagnosis" and the consequence of that: individuals with stories of spending years experiencing their state of mind, many hours researching it yet still having to go through multiple professionals to arrive at the "right" diagnosis (despite often spoonfeeding the professional the answer on a silver platter yet meeting resistance)

inglor_cz4• 5 years ago

Also, some people have so-called White coat hypertension. Basically, a medical appointment stresses them enough that they present with HBP even though they are, in fact, healthy.

To mitigate this, frequent measurements at home or at work should be taken. Those give you much more information about your status.

salex892• 5 years ago

Well, I have an MD in the household. But I get anxious when measuring blood pressure because I'm scared it will be to high. My dad has it, and I'm always afraid I'll get it too. When she ambushes me and measures it when I don't have the time to panic, it is usually fine.

On the other hand, I had a regular blood test several weeks ago, and my blood sugar was borderline high for a fasting period. I just went out and bought a glucometer and tracked it for days later, it was much lower. It just happened on that one reading at the lab. The only explanation is that I was fasting for too long (close to 16 hours) and the lab was not the first thing I went in the morning, I had one more place to visit before. So my body was already fully woken up and/or my liver started doing its thing and produced glucose from fat or whatever.

paul_f• 5 years ago

This is true. In 2017, the definition changed from 140 systolic to 130 systolic. Quite a huge win for the pharmaceutical companies that

lambdaba• 5 years ago

To anybody dealing with higher than ideal blood pressure, try supplementing magnesium. Magnesium deficiency is not often diagnosed by medical professionals, yet it's very common.

rapsey• 5 years ago

Also anyone suffering from insomnia. Magnesium should be the first thing to try. But never magnesium oxide (the cheapest form) because that does not absorb at all.

IAmGraydon• 5 years ago

Actually, magnesium oxide absorbs just fine.

https://www.algaecal.com/expert-insights/magnesium-oxide-del...

ekianjo5• 5 years ago

deficiency of ions is almost never measured in any blood test afaik. Almost nobody seems to be looking for deficiencies.

tryptophan2• 5 years ago

Iron deficiency is incredibly obvious on even a simple blood test. It will result in a reduced hematocrit(among other things), which is always calculated.

hcarvalhoalves• 5 years ago

The blood test rarely shows Mg deficiency since the body compensates electrolytes in the blood w/ intra-celular reserves, according to my doctor. The diagnosis is always indirect by other symptoms (decreased reflexes, cramps, insomnia).

creamynebula• 5 years ago

Or try having a proper diet for your species! The only salt primates are consuming in nature are the minute amounts inside things like tomato and cucumber.

nradov4• 5 years ago

Gorillas specifically seek out salty foods.

https://datadryad.org/stash/dataset/doi:10.5061/dryad.369539...

garganzol3• 5 years ago

Also B1, especially when one's life is plagued by fatigue.

AliBoukeroui• 5 years ago

That's true :( very sad.

ekianjo5• 5 years ago

he number of people living with high blood pressure has more than doubled since 1990
To find out how hypertension rates

So are they talking about raw numbers of cases or rates? That's confusing because the population has massively increased in the past 30 years so of course there should be more cases...

martinpw• 5 years ago

Good point. World population increased 50% since 1990 and they are comparing raw numbers. So really it is a ~35% increase in the rate and a doubling in absolute numbers.

bserge3• 5 years ago

Gave me a scare there. World population has only increased by 3 billion since 1990. We good. /s

vbezhenar• 5 years ago

May be more people measure their blood pressure now? I never cared about it. This year when getting COVID vaccine doctor checked my pressure and it was higher than normal. If not for COVID, I wouldn’t even know about it. Might be an interesting correlation, if doctors check blood pressure before vaccination in other countries.

inglor_cz4• 5 years ago

I got rid of my HBP that I had from 24 to 41 years of age through intermittent fasting and it never came back, even though I only fast sometimes these days. I am 43 now.

18/6 scheme works for me.

mikeodds• 5 years ago

How long do you fast for before seeing changes?

inglor_cz4• 5 years ago

In my case, the BP dropped after a few weeks. After a month and a half, I could no longer take pills that I took for almost two decades because they depressed my BP to unsafe levels (blacking out when standing up).

My fasting glucose also got lower, though it was never bad to start with. I experimented with a continuous glucose meter and I have seen about 5 per cent reduction (from 5.0 to 4.7 in Euro units).

wombatmobile3• 5 years ago

For America:

1. Sodium intake correlates with blood pressure

2. The sodium content of processed foods provide ≈80% of the sodium in the average American diet.

3. According to national food-recall surveys (which underestimate food intake and exclude salt added at the table), daily sodium consumption increased from 2262 mg in 1974 to 3375 mg in 2000.

Excerpted from

https://academic.oup.com/ajcn/article/81/4/941/4753811

JohnJamesRambo• 5 years ago

Salt has been demonized for high blood pressure maybe unnecessarily. Morton Salt even sued about it once. Unless you are salt sensitive (most people aren’t, you’d know if you were, you would have high blood pressure) eating high salt won’t raise blood pressure. Salt away and stop denying yourself! I think it’s a masochism thing for many people.

https://time.com/3313332/salt-and-blood-pressure/

America’s high blood pressure is probably caused by that 42% obesity rate I saw yesterday…

giantg27• 5 years ago

I generally agree. However, sodium imbalance can potentially lead to higher blood pressure. Basically, if one's diet sucks and they aren't getting enough other electrolytes and water, then it could cause a temporary rise.

morpheos137• 5 years ago

Yeah working kidneys should remove salt efficiently the think is HBP often damages kidneys. So people with long term HBP may be less efficient at removing salt than others.

wombatmobile3• 5 years ago

The time article you linked to says:

All of which is surprising given the fact that Americans are bombarded with warnings that we eat far too much: just yesterday, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) issued a report finding that 90% of U.S. children eat more sodium than guidelines recommend. Almost half of that comes from 10 processed foods that kids tend to eat a lot of: pizza, bread, processed meats, savory snacks, sandwiches, cheese, processed chicken, pasta dishes, Mexican dishes, and soup.

The CDC firmly believes that salt directly influences blood pressure. “We consider the totality of the evidence,” said Janelle Gunn of the CDC’s Division of Heart Disease and Stroke Prevention at a press conference. “A vast majority of scientific research confirms that as sodium is reduced, so is blood pressure.”

bamboozled3• 5 years ago

For some people it's a great way to get Kidney stones, so maybe there's no need to constantly reach for the shaker, just get used to less salty food and you will be ok.

jghn• 5 years ago

Right. Yes it's diet related but that's because most American's diets are awful in general.

As an n=1 bit of anecdote, I had hypertension for years, capping out somewhere around 180/120. I was put on low sodium diets with no change at all. I was put on blood pressure medication, with modest benefits.

Then one year I arrived at my annual physical with a dramatic drop. What changed? I lost 30 pounds. The next year I arrived with another notable drop, now square in the normal BP range. What changed? I lost another 10 pounds and had picked up a fair amount of cardiovascular exercise. During this time period and to this day I never bother limiting my sodium intake, and I both have a heavy hand in the kitchen as well as eat out a lot, both leading to high levels.

YeGoblynQueenne2• 5 years ago

> Unless you are salt sensitive (most people aren’t, you’d know if you were, you would have high blood pressure) eating high salt won’t raise blood pressure.

The question is how you would know if you have high blood pressure. Most people don't measure their blood pressure as a matter of fact and there are no symptoms of high blood pressure until it gets really, really bad.

johnnyApplePRNG• 5 years ago

I watched a great Nature of Things episode called "Pass the Salt" [0] recently which disproved the myth that salt causes high blood pressure.

(It's highly correlated to alcohol intake, smoking, and poor diet in general.)

The data that inferred that salt was the culprit (there was none) almost makes it look like the tobacco/alcohol industries might have cherry picked it to inject doubt on what they probably knew to be true about their products.

Highly recommended watch!

[0] https://www.cbc.ca/natureofthings/episodes/pass-the-salt

sneak2• 5 years ago

I eat tons of salt, but with a ketogenic diet, and my BP is perfect now (it was always high prior to going keto).

Perhaps your post is an oversimplification.

refurb• 5 years ago

No. The only time sodium impact blood pressure is if you have sodium sensitive hypertension.

Normally functioning kidneys can easily excrete excess sodium with no impact on blood pressure.

garganzol3• 5 years ago

High blood pressure, hypertension, obesity, and insulin resistance often come together. This hallmark combination is caused by the underlying metabolic dysfunction when the body is unable to consume the glucose in full despite it's more than adequate presence in the blood stream.

Keyword: acquired mitochondrial disease. Moderate fasting, moderate physical activities, minerals (magnesium), and vitamins (especially B1, B3) help. The exception is a genetic form of mitochondrial disease which is generally incurable.

cinntaile• 5 years ago

This hallmark combination is caused by the underlying metabolic dysfunction when the body is unable to consume the glucose in full despite it's more than adequate presence in the blood stream.

Can you perhaps provide some sources to back your claim?

garganzol3• 5 years ago

"Mitochondrial dysfunction leads to decreased β-oxidation and ATP production and increased ROS production, resulting in insulin resistance, diabetes, and cardiovascular disease." [2]

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glycolysis

[2] https://www.ahajournals.org/doi/10.1161/CIRCRESAHA.107.16547...

[3] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC380258/

[4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cellular_respiration

mikenyc2• 5 years ago

https://www.amazon.com/Metabolical-Processed-Nutrition-Moder... p. 39-42

"the kidney is very adept at excreting excess sodium. But there’s one thing that inhibits sodium excretion by the kidney—insulin resistance. High insulin levels increase blood pressure, even with relatively low sodium intake. And many people are insulin resistant—and those people do need to lower their salt as a treatment of the disease."

nradov4• 5 years ago

Mitochondrial disease can also be caused by some antibiotics. People tend to think of antibiotics as safe, but some of them can have drastic side effects. Mitochondria are basically bacteria that were incorporated into our cells through endosymbiosis so it's not surprising that treatments to kill off bacteria can also impact them.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3760005/

manmal6• 5 years ago

If potassium levels are low, then potassium chloride can be used (at least partially) as sodium alternative. Potassium works well for lowering blood pressure, according to studies:

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41371-020-00396-1

We believe current guidelines recommending increasing K+ intake for the prevention and treatment of hypertension are justified

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/21403995/

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32500831/

https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article%3Fid%3D10.1371/jou...

https://ods.od.nih.gov/factsheets/Potassium-HealthProfession...

Updated to add a caveat in the first sentence.

tsoukase2• 5 years ago

Do not mess with K in diet. Its levels are asymptomatic and in a bad day (eg dehydration) a fatal cardiac arrhythmia is possible

manmal6• 5 years ago

What levels are you talking about? The article published in Nature mentions that the general population does not consume enough of it:

Potassium (K+) is an extremely important mineral, as supported by National Academy of Science, Engineering, and Medicine Dietary Reference Intakes (DRI), and has been designated as a “nutrient of public health concern” due to its general under consumption [3]. In 2004, the Food and Nutrition Board of the Institute of Medicine established recommended intake levels of 4700 mg/day of K+ [4]. Despite these recommendations, data from National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) 2007–2008 estimated mean intakes in the United States to be 2290 mg/day for women and 3026 mg/day for men, substantially lower than the suggested values [5]. This relative “deficiency” is even more noteworthy when one considers the K+ intake of prehistoric man was estimated to be 15,000 mg/day, which actually exceeds the NHANES recommendations by a factor greater than 4 [6]. Despite studies demonstrating blood pressure lowering effects of increasing K+ intake, the 2019 DRI concluded more evidence is required to support a DRI for K+ [7].

andrekandre3• 5 years ago

thats interesting, online there are lots of articles (including webmd etc) about eating foods with potassium such as black beans, bananas, sweet potatoes etc + lowering sodium intake for hypertension... are you saying thats actually dangerous?

(sorry if the question seems weird, but im genuinely curious)

baybal2• 5 years ago

Potassium is certainly not good if you are not in the best cardiac health, moreover if you are older

andrekandre3• 5 years ago

any articles about that i can check?

(not old, or have cardiac troubles, but curious)

manmal6• 5 years ago

Do you mean in the cases where potassium levels in serum are already too high? That would make sense. Other than that, it seems to be not as simple (just a mouse model, mind you):

The findings [...] demonstrate the benefit of adequate potassium supplementation on prevention of vascular calcification in atherosclerosis-prone mice, and the adverse effect of low potassium intake

https://www.nih.gov/news-events/nih-research-matters/how-too...

foxhop5• 5 years ago

I have high blood pressure, I watch my salt intake and I'm certain it is genetic since I eat well and im not overweight.

My father and all my brothers have high blood pressure as well. Each take different meds with varying results.

I'm taking a food supplement, primary herb is motherwart and I've gotten my numbers back to normal.

I've been having my blood pressure steadily rise since being a teenager but now I have a food pill that keeps my numbers proper!

It sounds too good to be true and yet it's not. I've had the levels in normal range for the last 6 months!

This is the specific product I've been using:

https://www.restorativeformulations.com/products/rf-cardiova...

The other suggested food pill is magnesium, which puts me to sleep similar to Benedryl. I take 30 minutes before bed when I remember.

I work with a Natropathic Dr and have brought this up with my general practitioner who is too busy and over worked to follow up much on this.

I have a machine to take my reading so, same machine, same body position, same location, same times. I take my reading randomly lately expecting to get a bad reading and yet it's still normal.

I understand how this makes me look to share my story,like I'm peddling a pill, I'm willing to risk my reputation if it means helping anothers, and just sharing what has worked for me.

I'm 36 years of age.

I grow food but the ingredients in this pill are grown all over the world (there are 5 active ingredients):

Motherwort herb 290mg | Hawthorn leaf & flower 300mg | Passion flower herb 200mg | European Mistletoe leaf 100mg | African Snake Root 24mg

I plan to try to grow some of these plants and potentially try to narrow down if one herb is most responsible than others for my stabilization. It would be cheaper to grow my own herbs if possible.

It took about 3 weeks to see a downward trend.

I quit coffee two years before starting this pill.

wobblyasp3• 5 years ago

No offense, but this sounds like a bad advert for quackery. Any research or studies you've looked at to back up the claims?

foxhop5• 5 years ago

I hear you, other than the fact that I have nothing to gain from sharing, I'm not sure how else to prove it, I mean I have a google spreadsheet I could maybe share.

Grab the ingredient list and search each up in relation to blood pressure reduction and kidney/adrenal healing.

spython2• 5 years ago

Could be a psychosomatic effect instead of quackery. As blood pressure and psychological stress are often correlated.

manmal6• 5 years ago

Entering "{NAME OF COMPOUND} blood pressure pubmed" or "{NAME OF COMPOUND} blood pressure hindawi" into your favorite search engine usually yields some quick results. I did that for some of the herbs in that formula, and found some interesting papers for each one.

bserge3• 5 years ago

You're seriously overlooking the magnesium here. Could be that's what's working.

But I can't comment on the other stuff, it could be effective, I never heard of it.

giantg27• 5 years ago

My BP on my days off is normal. Usually I have my biometrics done during the work day. Going from work to that it is usually elevated. It sounds like work stress is my main cause.

arrty88• 5 years ago

Wonder if its tied more to our food or drink consumption? Lots of soda has tons of sodium. As well as alcoholic beverages.

aravindgp• 5 years ago

The main reason for all three high blood pressure , diabetes and obesity seems to be excess glucose intake in our food. Millets seem to work wonders in solving this problem for society at large. High fiber rich vegetables diet plan is helping in controlling blood pressure and diabetes diseases.

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/327501651_A_whole_f...

nradov4• 5 years ago

I suspect that lower average nitric oxide levels are one of several factors behind the increase in hypertension rates. Nitric oxide is a vasodilator. Production is stimulated by sunlight exposure and exercise. Generally people are spending less time being active outdoors.

nikolay• 5 years ago

My BP was a clockwork 120/80 all my life. Suddenly, during the last 2 years, without any change of lifestyle, nutrition, or other health status, it went up to a little less than 140/90. I rushed to take Micardis (telmisartan), which did nothing at all. While in Bulgaria, a doctor noticed my heart beat is pretty high (it's been above 90 all my life since youth) and told me I need a beta-blocker. After prescribing me Lodoz (Ziac in the States) (bisoprolol and hydrochlorothiazide), my pulse normalized and my BP dropped below 120/80 even.

Before that, I've tried EVERYTHING for 2 years! Every supplement, every herbal with no effect whatsoever. I've never had magnesium deficiency as for 10+ years I've been taking a mixture of different chelates and supplementing with 500mg a day religiously.

In situations like this, I really start disbelieving in alternative medicine and nutrition as, really, if something works, there'd be a patented drug monetizing the measurable effect.

Of course, with drugs, I don't really know all the negative effects. But! Not all supplements are benign, they can be contaminated, there are almost never recalls for them.

High blood pressure cases double in 30 years

Related Stories