Blood pressure control – take the low road

Take the low road

Parts I and II of this series explain why this is important and how to recognize hypertension. This post is about how to get it all under control.

Your target and how to bullseye it

We need ‘normal’ [young person] levels of <120/<80 to minimise cardiovascular risk. For example, a level of 110/70 would be wonderful.

Two Key Questions:

1. How do we get to that level when our BP is up?
2. Is this degree of reduction safely achievable?

There are lifestyle and medical approaches.

The best approach is a combined one. Don’t say ”I will try the lifestyle approach first and see about medication if that fails”, because any time spent with high BP is damaging, and the acute events like heart attack and stroke that may occur with untreated BP are life threatening. SO do not delay getting your BP down. Fortunately, as modern BP medication is non-harmful there is no reason to be shy of taking treatment. 

The optimum approach is start on medication, get control, do the lifestyle change, too, and maybe later, reduce the meds a bit. Moreover, if you are overweight, a drinker, eat a lot of salt, and have insulin resistance you will only get optimum control by making lifestyle changes to alter those factors alongside your medication. Around 50% of you will need only one drug to get your BP down but equally 50% will need two.

Salt reduction is always helpful but has a low impact; magnesium supplementation at around 300mg daily has a significant effect.

The Short Answer

Reduce alcohol; lose 5-10 Kg depending on how over-heavy you are; try for 10,000 steps a day and a more active life overall; take either candesartan 8mg [potentially increasing to 16mg] or indapamide Slow Release 1.5 mg as your first line agent and add the other drug if you need a combination to get the needed result. It is possible that taking a magnesium supplement as I recommend for all over 60’s may have a beneficial effect.

To get the whole inside story read more

Medium Chain Triglyceride Oil

Why MCT oil can be beneficial

There is proven value in weight control, migraine and cluster headache, Minimal Cognitive Impairment [MCI], and in achieving muscle gain in frailty management.

Although there are many internet claims of sleep improvement there are no human studies of value to prove this.

Fidgets

Be a fidgeter!

Start today. These extra movements can help you increase your activity, boost your metabolism, keep your weight down and maintain joint function.

In a café or on a train you can see the fidgets: they are playing invisible pianos, tapping out rhythms, bouncing their knees. This is all beneficial. – often they don’t know they are doing it. I just want you to make it systematic, conscious and targeted.

Managing Sugar

Sweet enough! Managing the sugars in your diet

You have a 'sweet tooth' and crave sugary things. OK, it's not a weakness, it's genetic ie you can blame it on your parents*. However, sadly the consequences of this are entirely your responsibility. If you are struggling with your weight, then you need a sugar [reduction] strategy, and that is also critically important for a good HealthSpan and Alzheimer's avoidance. A high sugar diet means blood sugar spikes after eating which leads to insulin resistance [lots of metabolic issues] and fat storage. You choose.

Body Composition, not Body Weight

You may think being on top of age means being weight obsessed. But in reality, it is the quality of what your body consists of that is important in terms of limiting ageing.

The key is having a sense of how much muscle [positive] you have and how much central fat [potentially damaging] you have gained.

So the number on the scale is less important  as long as you are travelling in the right direction.

Are you borderline malnourished?

Strange but true. As you age not only must you avoid being in the overweight camp, but you also need to escape undernourishment which has even worse consequences. The reason malnourishment happens is either physiological, social, or medical issues. Your food is absorbed a lot less well, we all get reduced appetite, may be solitary and less ’bothered’ about food so eating too little, or have increased needs because of long term illness. Nowadays, rising food costs add another cause. Medically, inflammation is the key driver ie the ‘inflammaging’ addressed in other InfoSheets,

How to MAXIMISE your healthspan and have a Diamond Life

Your Diamond Life

Not in the sense being rich materially, but rich in good 'quality of life' years. So your HealthSpan is the good years, your LifeSpan the total including those bad end-of-life years you have seen others have.

Want help you to limit the effects of ageing and maximise your HealthSpan?