The medical pundits say that:
"A combination of local endothelial-derived factors, sympathetic nervous system, changes in renal hemodynamics and endocrine secretions are responsible for controlling BP in normal humans."
Dr. Trempe always would say, "is it true?"
The answer to this question is "yes," sort of.
The pundits answer the question, "What." What is happening physiologically, but they do NOT answer the question "why."
The "why" answer is that your tissue relies on blood flow to bring nutrients and oxygen and to remove waste. With this knowledge, it is important to address the root causes addressed in the "what" explained above. Otherwise, there are severe consequences.
Importantly, down-regulating blood pressure with drugs can do nothing but HARM tissue - particularly those that are most energetic. Blood pressure drugs do NOT address
endothelial-derived factors,
sympathetic nervous system,
changes in renal hemodynamics and
endocrine secretions
What are those tissues? Your brain and eyes.
Dr. Trempe frequently told me that many of his older patients on BP meds stopped taking them in the daytime because it made them feel woozy. Instead, they took them at night time only. What is "woozy?" A brain in an energy crisis. Woozy is an acute response. However, a chronic response includes
From the pundits:
Irregular heartbeat.
Lightheadedness.
Low blood pressure.
Rapid or slow heartbeat.
Heart failure (shortness of breath and swelling of the legs)
Shock (extremely low blood pressure)
But add these to the list:
Alzheimer's disease. Is either high blood pressure or low blood pressure bad for the brain in elderly people? A recent report from the Kungsholmen study by Qiu and colleagues suggests that a very high systolic or very low diastolic blood pressure increase the incidence of Alzheimer's disease (AD).
Low daytime SBP was independently associated with a greater progression of cognitive decline in older patients with dementia and MCI among those treated with AHDs. Excessive SBP lowering may be harmful for older patients with cognitive impairment. Ambulatory blood pressure monitoring can be useful to help avoid high blood pressure overtreatment in this population.
Now it is important to REDEFINE low blood pressure. It is any blood pressure below that which your body naturally produces. Thus, ANY drug that lowers blood pressure created low blood pressure - REGARDLESS OF THE READING OR STANDARD OF CARE MEASURES.
Your body is compensating for
endothelial-derived factors,
sympathetic nervous system,
changes in renal hemodynamics and
endocrine secretions
And if you go against its response to these conditions, your brain will suffer - long term.**
** Note, I am NOT advocating against BP meds to prevent an acute syndrome. I am advocating against BP meds for life without addressing the 4 pathways to elevated BP.
"We know that the brain constantly uses around 20% of our metabolic energy, even while we rest our mind."
Simple math: Your brain is 2.5% the mass of your body yet uses 20% of our energy - so the brain uses 8 TIMES more energy than the average of all other tissue in your body. Is it quite clear that limiting the supply of energy to the brain, by artificially lowering BP is a problem?
Here is why lowering BP with drugs impacts tissue beyond the brain.
“If there’s a hard limit on energy supply to the brain, we suspected that the brain may handle challenging tasks by diverting energy away from other functions, and prioritising the focus of our attention.
Our findings suggest that the brain does indeed allocate less energy to the neurons that respond to information outside the focus of our attention when our task becomes harder. This explains why we experience inattentional blindness and deafness even to critical information that we really want to be aware of.”
(same reference as above)
Lowering BP impacts the brain beyond neurodegeneration.
Overall, our exploratory findings suggest possible differential effects of antihypertensive medications on mood that merits further study: calcium antagonists and βblockers may be associated with increased risk.
The introduction to this paper explains the connection between the brain and cardiovascular disease.
"Depression and cardiovascular disease are both common disorders and major contributors to the global burden of disease. A bidirectional relationship between depression and cardiovascular disease is thought to exist mainly because of the overlapping pathophysiological processes that underlie both conditions.1,2
Bipolar disorder (BD) is associated with a 1.5- to 2.5-fold increased risk of cardiovascular mortality and hypertension,3
whereas major depressive disorder (MDD) has a 1.3-fold increased risk of hypertension.4
There is accruing data from animal model, epidemiological, and genomic studies that pathways and molecular targets of commonly used antihypertensive drugs may have a role in the pathogenesis or course of mood disorders.
Note that this is from the American Heart Association.
Why your eyes? Doctors can SEE into them to make a diagnosis. Not so with the brain. Your retina is 0.0001 the size of your brain. Close your eyes. Do you feel relief from fatigue? That is how energetic your retina is. AMAZING.
"The retina is part of the central nervous system, and shares the characteristically high metabolism of the brain. The high energy demand of the retina is normally matched with a large supply of metabolites. When supply does not equal demand (e.g. if retinal blood flow is impaired), retinal neurons are at risk of excitotoxic cell death and vision is impaired or lost."
Interestingly, what is described above "when supply does not equal demand (e.g. if retinal blood flow is impaired)," describes what BP drugs do!
In subsequent blogs, dive into various problems associated with blood pressure drugs and give solutions.
Index & Upcoming (short) blogs on blood pressure drugs
Number 1: What regulates blood pressure? - completed
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I never realized the retina was so energetic. When someone tells me they need to close their eyes for a little bit of rest, it makes perfect sense. They are resting their eyes more than anything else. Maybe this is why a quick nap rejuvenates a person and fills up their energy reserves. However, wonder if you are blind? I know the retina and brain still sense light, but I wonder if the retina still consume as much energy.