4 Ways to Treat High Blood Pressure Without a Pill
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Updated October 21, 2014.
Alternative therapies are increasingly receiving more attention for treatment of everything from heart disease, to chronic kidney disease (CKD), and now high blood pressure (or hypertension). The overarching principle to always keep in mind though is that while it might be "cool and fashionable" to treat your maladies with alternative therapies, not all such treatments are backed by hard science. Some interventions work, some don't.
And yes, they could have harmful side effects as well. The best and brightest of us have fallen gullible victims to mumbo-jumbo alternative therapies for various illnesses; Steve Jobs tryst with pancreatic cancer being a case in point. Long story short, approach every treatment (including conventional medicine) as a level-headed, scientific sceptic.
Hypertension (high blood pressure), is an extremely common disease. A little under a half, or 40% of all adults aged 25 years and over, have high blood pressure (most of them residing in the developed world). This number is about 30% for US adults over the age of 18. About 7.5 million people die every year around the world from consequences of high blood pressure. I guess you get my point...uncorrected high blood pressure is a big deal, and you don't want to ignore it!
Conventional allopathic medicines and lifestyle modifications still remain the backbone of hypertension management. What about alternative treatments though? Well, recently in 2013, the American Heart Association came out with an official statement addressing this issue.
This was published in the journal Hypertension. The statement runs about 59 pages, but I will try to summarize this statement's conclusion's addressing the efficacy of approaches like acupuncture, yoga, meditation, etc in treating high blood pressure. Please note that these conclusions apply only to treatment of high blood pressure, and not to other health/psychological benefits that may be derived from doing these activities.
