I don’t have high blood pressure!

12. September 2006 William Davis (0)
Art undeniably had high blood pressure.

At age 53, he had all the “footprints” of high blood pressure that’d been present for at least several years: abnormal patterns by EKG, abnormally thick heart muscle, and an enlarged aorta by an echocardiogram. These sorts of changes require many years to develop. Art’s blood pressure was 140/85 sitting quietly in the office.

“That’s about what my primary care doc gets, too. Whenever it’s high, he takes it again after a few minutes and it always comes down.”

Art tried to persuade me that his blood pressure was high today only because of the traffic on the way into the office. When I dismissed this as a cause, he insisted that stress he’d been suffering because of his teenage son was the cause. “I just know I don’t have high blood pressure!”




Who’s right here? Well, Art is not here to defend himself. But one fact is crystal clear: you cannot develop complications of high blood pressure unless you truly have high blood pressure!

In other words, Art’s abnormal changes in heart structure (thickened heart muscle and enlarged aorta) are serious changes that develop only with years and years of sustained blood pressure at least as high as the one in the office. His blood pressure almost certainly ranged much higher at other times, particularly during stressful situations like waiting in the check-out line at the grocery store, watching a suspenseful TV show, petty irritations at his job, and on and on.

Blood pressure does not have to be high all the time to generate complications of high blood pressure. It can be sporadic, variable, even occasional. Clearly, sustained high blood pressure is the worst situation that creates adverse consequences more quickly. But blood pressure that wavers from low to high only some of the time can still, given sufficient time, cause the very same unwanted effects.

Control of blood pressure is crucial to your coronary plaque control program. Blood pressure may be boring: not as exotic, say, as lipoproteins, and not as fun as talking about nutritional supplements. But neglect blood pressure issues and you will not gain full control over coronary plaque growth—-your heart scan score will increase.

Watch for an upcoming Special Report on the Track Your Plaque Membership website, a full detailed discussion of how to recognize when blood pressure is an important issue, along with a full discussion of nutritional methods to reduce it, often sufficient to minimize or eliminate the need for medication.
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HDL and vitamin D

HDL and vitamin D

22. February 2007 William Davis (5)
I know of no published reports on this question, but I've now seen numerous people experience significant jumps in HDL with raising blood vitamin D to 25-OH-vitamin D3.

Last week, for example, I had a man who had struggled with raising HDL from a starting level of 28 mg/dl. On niacin, exercise, weight loss, fish oil, red wine, and cilostazol (a prescription agent that I use occasionally that raises HDL), his HDL rose to 41 mg/dl--better, but hardly to our goal.

I added vitamin D, 4000 units, and raised his 25-OH-vitamin D3 level from 22 ng/ml to 53 ng/ml. Next HDL: 73 mg/dl! Small LDL improves along with a rise in HDL.

Not everybody's response is this dramatic. I see more typical rises of 5 to 10 mg/dl every day. I'm uncertain of why the response is inconsistent, though people who begin with lower vitamin D levels seem to experience a larger HDL increase. I wonder if the partial normalization of insulin and glucose responses is at work, or some anti-inflammatory effect.

Vitamin D provides so many other benefits, as well as HDL-raising. I hope you've gone to the effort to have your blood level checked to determine your replacement need. If not, now's the time. February represents your nadir (lowest point) for 25-OH-vitamin D3 blood levels.
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Comments (5) -

  • Mike

    2/22/2007 4:49:00 PM |

    If higher vitamin D levels increase HDL, then HDL levels should be higher in the summer and lower in the winter.

    I did a quick Google search and the first two studies that I found showed the opposite.

    http://cat.inist.fr/?aModele=afficheN&cpsidt=1059698
    http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m2459/is_n4_v22/ai_13228867

  • Anonymous

    2/22/2007 6:20:00 PM |

    I am an RN with an interest in nutrition and heart dx. One of my son's has CAD, with blockage in LAD and was recently cardioverted due to persistant a.flutter 4:1 block.  Even though he is on statins, niacin, does exercise, has lost weight,takes fish oil, his HDL has only come up to 37.  

    I am going to suggest that he add the Vit D and maybe that will help.  Thank you for this information.

  • neil

    2/22/2007 11:54:00 PM |

    Hi Dr. Davis,

    It will be interesting to see if these results hold true for other patients, please keep us updated. It certainly sounds hopeful for those of us that struggle to keep our HDL up to a level of 60, and our HDL2 sub-fractions high as well.

    I ran across an article that shows perhaps a vitamin D pill treatment for cancer might be patentable!

    http://tinyurl.com/36dvb8

    Neil

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    Not everybody's response is this dramatic. I see more typical rises of 5 to 10 mg/dl every day. I'm uncertain of why the response is inconsistent, though people who begin with lower vitamin D levels seem to experience a larger HDL increase. I wonder if the partial normalization of insulin and glucose responses is at work, or some anti-inflammatory effect.

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