Contributing factors to High Blood Pressure

Summarizing my findings on what causes/contributes to high blood pressure... HBP happens when you have too many of the following 9 contributing factors:

1. Overweight.
2. Lack of physical activity.
3. Tobacco use.
4. Stressful lifestyle.
5. Alcohol consumption.
6. Increasing age.
7. Family history.
8. High sodium intake.
9. Low potassium intake.

The first 7 factors were not a surprise to me, they are common to many medical conditions. As for my personal situation: I had none of the first 4 factors; I do drink, so #5 was against me; at 42, age was only a slight factor; #7 (family history) was against me. So, looking at the first 7 factors: #1-#4 did not apply, #6-#7 are out of my control, only #5 could I change. I found it hard to believe that I could get such high blood pressure at a relatively early age from just alcohol and family history. So, there must be something to the last 2 factors I needed to learn.

To be honest, I had never heard anything about potassium before in my life. It was never mentioned in any "healthy diet/healthy eating" literature I had encountered; it was never mentioned in any health classes I had in my childhood. It was an unknown commodity to me. Here is what I found:

High blood pressure (and its negative impact on your heart) is a man-made disease. Before the (rampant) existence of HBP people: (1) did not drink or smoke; (2) were active and not overweight; (3) ate a diet where the ratio of potassium to sodium ranged from 3:1 to 5:1 (i.e., 3:1 means 3 mg of potassium for every 1 mg of sodium in food intake). Conversely, the typical person today (especially in the US): (1) does drink or smoke (or both); (2) is inactive and overweight; (3) eats a diet with a potassium to sodium ratio of 1:5 to 1:10. Yikes, mankind had reversed itself on every contributing factor to HBP and its eventual negative impact!

Back to my situation: drink=yes/smoke=no, active=yes/overweight=no - 3 of 4 I am "in the clear". So, I studied my diet and, sure enough, my potassium to sodium ratio was in the 1:5 to 1:10 range.

So, changing my diet to a healthy potassium to sodium ratio was apparently the key. And, from the background research I mentioned in the last post: there is a wealth of studies that have demonstrated a reduction in blood pressure by focusing on getting your potassium to sodium ratio to the 3:1 range or better.

I now had my mission, it was just a matter of execution ;-)