What are common high blood pressure causes? Genetics? Not so much.
Contrary to what you may believe high blood pressure isn’t as much genetic, as it is lifestyle dependent. Below you will find the most common lifestyle cause for high blood pressure together with an explanation how to check for it.
High blood pressure causes, the official story
Believe it or not, medical textbooks state that over 90% of high blood pressure cases do not have a known cause. Some instances of high blood pressure are blamed for malfunctioning kidneys, some for genetics. There is also a lot of speculation about smoking, alcohol, stress, age, but none of those are considered definite reasons for hypertension.
- Here is an accurate blood pressure monitor
- And here is a ECG/EKG unit for personal use
Since there isn’t a definite cause your doctor will likely suggest a medication that would lower blood pressure. Unfortunately, anti-hypertensive medication only does that: lowers blood pressure. It does not cure, reverse, or repair the heart. It means that if you are limiting hypertension treatment to a hypertension pill, your condition is likely to worsen over time. In a few years you may end up with more heart pills, maybe even a heart surgery. You don’t want that.
.
High blood pressure causes, the emerging story
You’ve heard of insulin resistance. You must have. Insulin resistance has been in the news for the last 20 years. The more insulin resistance studies had been published the more we got convinced that it had something to do with diabetes, obesity, infertility, and now… high blood pressure.
But don’t confuse insulin resistance with diabetes. These are not the same. Insulin resistance may be present even with perfect blood sugar numbers. Because insulin resistance is deceiving, there is no way to tell if somebody has the condition just by looking, questioning, or ordering standard blood work. That’s unfortunate, but your doctor is likely to dismiss nearly all insulin resistant patients as healthy, unless he orders specialized blood tests.
However, if you are looking carefully you may spot a few suggestive features. These may show up due to insulin resistance, years before pre-diabetes or diabetes is diagnosed. Among those are: hair thinning, skin tags on neck, enlarged waist, fatigue, aches and pains.
How to test for insulin resistance, in case your doctor puts up resistance
Do you have insulin resistance? You will likely say “no”. But are you saying “no” because your doctor did not say “yes”?
Most patients are under the impression that doctors test for everything., but that’s three equators far from the truth. Standard blood work is very limited and is made up of a few blood tests that barely say anything. You must be severely anemic, have infection, or be overflowing with cholesterol for your doctor to take a notice.
Insulin resistance is not part of the standard screen and the likelihood of being tested for the above is close to zero. The concept of insulin resistance, let alone testing for it, is still a foreign phenomenon to quite a large number of physicians. Thus, you mustn’t rely on standard protocols and need to ask your doctor to order the test for you. Or maybe, you could order insulin resistance test yourself. And since you are at it, you may as well check your genetic tendencies to hypertension as well as other diseases.
HOMA-IR, insulin resistance, and high blood pressure
The best test to diagnose insulin resistance is HOMA-IR. You may want to ask your doctor to order HOMA-IR. HOMA-IR is a mathematical algorithm that is calculated from two numbers: insulin and blood glucose. Therefore, to get HOMA-IR number you have to be tested for these two parameters. That’s why your doctor likely won’t specify HOMA-IR on the lab requisition. Instead, he will mark FBG & fasting insulin.
Although two parameters are tested, HOMA-IR result will give you just one number. If that number is higher than 1.4, you have just discovered one of the most important high blood pressure causes for yourself, insulin resistance.
What if you have insulin resistance?
Don’t be shocked that you actually have insulin resistance. One in four people with blood pressure spikes that have no known history of diabetes, no apparent risk for diabetes, that take no medication for anything due to good health, is actually insulin resistant. 1
But don’t count on your blood pressure pill to help you with reversing low insulin sensitivity. Heart medication cannot address any high blood pressure causes or bring you back to health. The job of the medication is only to suppress your high blood pressure numbers for a short time, usually 24 hours.
Insulin resistance and high blood pressure are reversible
An accurate diagnosis of a high blood pressure cause is one part, the other part to the success, is to actually reverse insulin resistance. Insulin resistance can be completely reversed, but that requires menu changes. But what if you eat out a lot or aren’t a great cook? Don’t worry.
69 Pleasures cookbook has 69 easy to follow, one pot, one burner recipes for planet lovers, minimalists, and entry-level cooks. It makes healthy easy, fast, inexpensive, and yummy. Oh, by the way, once insulin resistance is gone, so is high blood pressure. You may as well give a change a try.
I’m in search of some advice that I can’t get anywhere. I had a heart attaci 1.5 hrs ago and recovered fairly well however, I do have issue that I can’t seem to get addressed by my doctor. I had the normal meds anti cholestole, beta blocker, high bp, etc. I was having many problems so now only take the beta blocker (motoropolo), the High BP and a diretic. Issue I am having is just about like clock work every day at approx. 4:15 I get the halo feeling around the my head but not on top of the scalp. It goes around the head just about at the top of the ears and middle forehead with a pressure on the middle of the right ear. This is not painful but, is quite uncomfortable. Any pressure such as index finger to thumb on any part of the ears alleviates the problem on any hand pressure placed on the head instantly removes the feeling. Any idea what maybe causing this? Once I get home from work and lay down for about 2 hrs the feeling goes away. I have taken my BP during these periods and it has routinely been normal i.e. last reading 117/73 69bpm. I do get fatigued fairly easily even tho I go to the gym 3 or 4 days a week an push fairly hard on the weights. I’m 57 years old, white male, weight 223. The other issue is that for some reason after approx. a year into recovery I started to have problems with the bottom of my feet with aching and what I can only describe as the fatty tissue before the toes on the bottom of the feet feeling as if it has turned to cement. Normally, moving around with the discomfort for a few minutes alleviates it to the point that I have no strange feeling but, the feeling routinely returns numerous times per day. Any insight you can offer on possible causes would be appreciated. Thank you kindly!
the heart attack was 1.5 yrs ago not hrs, LOL.
Hi Jeffrey,
It looks like a deficiency syndrome. You will need to perform a few test to rule out some things.
1) Eat every 2 hours, especially around 3pm. If headache goes away it was due to low blood sugar.
2) Get oxymeter: http://amzn.to/2d0Yltb. It will test oxygen saturation of your blood. You may be low, hence tiredness.
3) Ask your MD to test vitamin B12, vitamin D, and ferritin; if any of these are low you are low in many other nutrients that are not testable. Medication can cause deficiency and this may cause symptoms.
4) Do a hair analysis: http://amzn.to/2cxUBy7. This will check saturation of minerals. Selenium deficiency can have similar symptoms.
5) Drink lots of plain water through the day. Dehydration can cause headaches and tiredness. 3-5pm is time of bladder meridian in traditional chinese medicine. This time governs fluids.
There are a few other possible causes, but start with these simple test and hopefully you will be fine in a few days.
Best of Health.
DrD