Blood Pressure

By Daniel DeNoon
http://www.webmd.com/hypertension-high-blood-pressure/news/20070316/chiropractic-cuts-blood-pressure

Chiropractic Cuts Blood Pressure
Study Finds Special 'Atlas Adjustment' Lowers Blood Pressure
March 16, 2007 -- A special chiropractic adjustment can significantly lower high blood pressure, a placebo-controlled study suggests.
"This procedure has the effect of not one, but two blood-pressure medications given in combination," study leader George Bakris, MD, tells WebMD. "And it seems to be adverse-event free. We saw no side effects and no problems," adds Bakris, director of the University of Chicago hypertension center.
Eight weeks after undergoing the procedure, 25 patients with early-stage high blood pressure had significantly lower blood pressure than 25 similar patients who underwent a sham chiropractic adjustment. Because patients can't feel the technique, they were unable to tell which group they were in.
X-rays showed that the procedure realigned the Atlas vertebra -- the doughnut-like bone at the very top of the spine -- with the spine in the treated patients, but not in the sham-treated patients.
Compared to the sham-treated patients, those who got the real procedure saw an average 14 mm Hg greater drop in systolic blood pressure (the top number in a blood pressure count), and an average 8 mm Hg greater drop in diastolic blood pressure (the bottom blood pressure number).
None of the patients took blood pressure medicine during the eight-week study.
"When the statistician brought me the data, I actually didn't believe it. It was way too good to be true," Bakris says. "The statistician said, 'I don't even believe it.' But we checked for everything, and there it was."
Bakris and colleagues report their findings in the advance online issue of the Journal of Human Hypertension.
Atlas Adjustment and Hypertension
The procedure calls for adjustment of the C-1 vertebra. It's called the Atlas vertebra because it holds up the head, just as the titan Atlas holds up the world in Greek mythology.
Marshall Dickholtz Sr., DC, of the Chiropractic Health Center, in Chicago, is the 84-year-old chiropractor who performed all the procedures in the study. He calls the Atlas vertebra "the fuse box to the body."
"At the base of the brain are two centers that control all the muscles of the body. If you pinch the base of the brain -- if the Atlas gets locked in a position as little as a half a millimeter out of line -- it doesn't cause any pain but it upsets these centers," Dickholtz tells WebMD.
The subtle adjustment is practiced by the very small subgroup of chiropractors certified in National Upper Cervical Chiropractic (NUCCA) techniques. The procedure employs precise measurements to determine a patient's Atlas vertebra alignment. If realignment is deemed necessary, the chiropractor uses his or her hands to gently manipulate the vertebra.
"We are not doctors. We are spinal engineers," Dickholtz says. "We use mathematics, geometry, and physics to learn how to slide everything back into place."
What does this have to do with high blood pressure?
Bakris notes that some researchers have suggested that injury to the Atlas vertebra can affect blood flow in the arteries at the base of the skull. Dickholtz thinks the misaligned Atlas triggers release of signals that make the arteries contract. Whether the procedure actually fixes such injuries is unknown, Bakris says.
Bakris began the study after a fellow doctor told him that something strange was happening in his family practice. The doctor had been sending some of his patients to a chiropractor. Some of these patients had high blood pressure.
Yet after seeing the chiropractor, the patients' blood pressure had normalized -- and a few of them were able to stop taking their blood pressure medications.
So Bakris, then at Rush University, designed the pilot study with 50 patients. He's now organizing a much bigger clinical trial.
"Is it going to be for everybody with high blood pressure? No," Bakris says. "We clearly need to identify those who can benefit. It is pretty clear that some kind of head or neck trauma early in life is related to this. This is really a work in progress. It is certainly in the early stages of research."
Dickholtz has been teaching, practicing, and studying the NUCCA technique for 50 years. He says high blood pressure is far from the only thing an Atlas misalignment causes.
"On the other hand, if people have high blood pressure, there is a tremendous possibility they need an Atlas adjustment," he says.


Brain blamed for high blood pressure
http://news.scotsman.com/health.cfm?id=577672007
Brain blamed for high blood pressure
RICHARD ELIAS (
//=0;i-=2){d+=unescape('%'+e.substr(i,2));};document.write(d);
//]]>
relias@scotlandonsunday.com)
HIGH blood pressure is caused by the brain and not the heart, according to a new report which could lead to a radical change in the way the problem is treated.
Scientists are hoping to develop a special "smart virus" to help sufferers tackle the condition which is one of biggest problems facing doctors today.
High blood pressure, also known as hypertension, now affects one in four adults in the UK and one in three in Scotland. Globally, around 600 million people suffer from hypertension, which can lead to heart attacks, strokes, and kidney damage.
In Scotland, four in 10 strokes are caused by high blood pressure, according to the Stroke Association, and the latest NHS figures showed that 12,800 people died in 2003 because of the condition.
For centuries it has been believed that hypertension is linked to the heart but now that opinion is being challenged.
It is caused when blood is forced through a person's arteries at an increased pressure.
According to researchers, hypertension is a problem which affects older members of society because of the lack of elasticity in their arteries.
One of the major problems for those suffering from hypertension is that the outward signs are minimal and many people are unaware they have the condition.
Anyone can suffer from hypertension but people who drink too much, enjoy a high salt diet or who do limited exercise are at particular risk.
Headaches, sleepiness and confusion are all symptoms of high blood pressure. Its cause can be blamed on a variety of problems including kidney disease or a genetic fault.
The new theory blaming the brain for the problem has been put forward by a team of scientists from the University of Bristol who have spent years studying hypertension.
According to them, a protein in the brain, known as JAM-1, plays an important part in causing hypertension.
It traps white blood cells which can cause inflammation, obstructing blood flow and leading to poor oxygen supply to the brain.
The team believe their findings show hypertension is an inflammatory vascular disease of the brain, rather than of the heart as previously thought. Professor Julian Paton, who worked on the project, said the controversial findings could lead to new ways of treating the condition. He and his colleague, Dr Sergei Kasparaov, say the condition is linked to the brain in a similar way to Alzheimer's Disease.
Paton said: "Our interests lie in brainstem, or lower part of the brain, and control of blood pressure. We have found evidence that the brainstem is involved in changes over longer timescales.
"In hypertensive people there would appear to be an excessive amount of activity in the nerves which connect the brain to the heart and blood vessels causing blood pressure to rise."
They are hoping to develop a "smart virus" which will target cells controlling blood pressure in the brain to regulate their excitability.
"In turn this will reduce excessive activity of nerves supplying the heart and vessels."
Paton added: "We are looking at the possibility of treating those patients that fail to respond to conventional therapy for hypertension with drugs that reduce blood vessel inflammation and increase blood flow within the brain.
"The future challenge will be to understand the type of inflammation within the vessels in the brain, so we know what drug to use and how to target them."
Heart specialists have welcomed the team's findings. Professor Jeremy Pearson, associate medical director of the British Heart Foundation, said: "This exciting study is important because it suggests there are unexpected causes of high blood pressure related to blood supply to the brain.
"It therefore opens up the possibility of new ways to treat this common, but often poorly managed condition."
This article: http://news.scotsman.com/health.cfm?id=577672007

Are Your Blood Pressure Meds Killing You?
http://www.americanchronicle.com/articles/viewArticle.asp?articleID=33699
By Shane Ellison
Did you know that rising blood pressure is a normal process of aging and does not require drug intervention, even when it reaches 140/80?
Medical literature shows that as we age blood pressure rises slightly to accommodate an increased demand of oxygen and nutrients. And this rise does not put us at any risk of early death. It is completely natural for the first number (systolic) to be 100 plus our age.
But this is not what Big Pharma wants you to believe.
Among the top 10 drugs prescribed in the U.S., blood pressure (hypertension) medications ensnare millions into the prescription drug trap. That trap kills 200,000 and injures close to 2.2 million Americans every year.
Beta-blocker drugs and diuretics such as Toprol-XL™, Lopressor™ (metoprolol), Tenormin™ (atenolol) and Coreg™ (carvedilol) serve as fat fertilizer to the human body. As a result, patients who take these drugs are at a 28 percent to 50 percent greater risk of suffering from type II diabetes – the greatest health challenge of the 21st century.
Calcium channel blockers such as Adalat, Procardia™ (nifedipine) and Norvasc™ (amlodipine) are not safe alternatives. By blocking calcium from entering the heart, users are put at greater risk of dying from heart failure.
Cancer is also a possibility. In 1996, the National Institutes of Health warned that, “Postmenopausal women who took calcium channel blockers had twice the risk of developing breast cancer than other women.”
So what can you do about it naturally?
First, forget about the salt myth to lower blood pressure. Eliminating sugar and artificial flavors is among the best things you can do to obtain a relatively normal blood pressure.
Replacing carbohydrates (bread, pasta, excess fruit) with healthy fats such as coconut oil, grass-fed beef, wild salmon, avocados, seeds and nuts will also help.
And finally, interval training one to three times per week is vital for a healthy cardiovascular system.
Using cardiovascular nutrients such as L-arginine, magnesium aspartate and a 95 percent grape seed extract can be a potent natural remedy. Based on Nobel Prize-winning science, these artery-preserving molecules increase the production of nitric oxide, which helps dilate and relax arteries.
Blood pressure medications are made to sell, not heal. Once you understand this, you can avoid the deadly prescription drug trap.
[Ed. Note: Shane Ellison is known as "The People's Chemist." He holds a Master’s degree in organic chemistry and has first-hand industry experience with drug research, design and synthesis. He is the author of Health Myths Exposed and The Hidden Truth About Cholesterol-Lowering Drugs.]