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Nov 3rd 2025
Natural Therapies for High Blood Pressure
. . . drugs just aren't cutting it.
The poor drug industry has been hard put to come up with a drug for hypertension that doesn't significantly reduce quality of life with side effects like dizziness, nausea, arrhythmias and sexual problems, and in addition contribute over time to chronic disease. The new angiotensin receptor blockers were recently linked in The Lancet Oncology with developing prostate, breast and lung cancers.
It's also been hard for them to come up with drugs that do the job. In a 2008 Canadian Family Physician, Richard Nahas, MD, CCFP, says only about 1/3 of those taking hypertension meds achieve optimal blood pressure control.
Therefore it's not surprising, although refreshing, to see some serious attention being paid in medical journals to non-drug therapies. Recently, in The Journal of Clinical Hypertension, two MDs discussed the value of the low-sodium DASH diet (see my article on the DASH diet for a description), exercise, weight reduction, moderate alcohol intake and supplements like potassium, calcium, vitamin D, folate, CoQ10, fish oil, garlic, and various herbs as well as specific exercises and mechanical devices for treating high blood pressure.
If you're already on blood pressure meds, it's important not to stop them abruptly, but to normalize your blood pressure with a good diet and supplement program while working with a doctor to gradually wean yourself off the drugs. It can take a while; it can also take up to three years for the drugs to completely clear from your system. But over the long term it's well worth the effort to get off these dangerous and quality-of-life-destroying drugs. Remember that drugs do nothing to cure disease; they are designed to merely suppress the symptoms of disease. Meanwhile, these toxic chemicals wreck havoc on your health.
For more on preventing and reversing hypertension see my article.
Siphai I. Angiotensin-receptor blockade and risk of cancer: meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials. The Lancet Oncology. 2010;11:627-636.
Nahas R. Complementary and alternative medicine approaches to blood pressure reduction: An evidence-based review. Canadian Family Physician. November 2008;54(11):1529-1533.
Woolf, KJ. Nondrug interventions for treatment of hypertension. The Journal of Clinical Hypertension. November 1, 2011, 13(11):829-835.
The poor drug industry has been hard put to come up with a drug for hypertension that doesn't significantly reduce quality of life with side effects like dizziness, nausea, arrhythmias and sexual problems, and in addition contribute over time to chronic disease. The new angiotensin receptor blockers were recently linked in The Lancet Oncology with developing prostate, breast and lung cancers.
It's also been hard for them to come up with drugs that do the job. In a 2008 Canadian Family Physician, Richard Nahas, MD, CCFP, says only about 1/3 of those taking hypertension meds achieve optimal blood pressure control.
Therefore it's not surprising, although refreshing, to see some serious attention being paid in medical journals to non-drug therapies. Recently, in The Journal of Clinical Hypertension, two MDs discussed the value of the low-sodium DASH diet (see my article on the DASH diet for a description), exercise, weight reduction, moderate alcohol intake and supplements like potassium, calcium, vitamin D, folate, CoQ10, fish oil, garlic, and various herbs as well as specific exercises and mechanical devices for treating high blood pressure.
If you're already on blood pressure meds, it's important not to stop them abruptly, but to normalize your blood pressure with a good diet and supplement program while working with a doctor to gradually wean yourself off the drugs. It can take a while; it can also take up to three years for the drugs to completely clear from your system. But over the long term it's well worth the effort to get off these dangerous and quality-of-life-destroying drugs. Remember that drugs do nothing to cure disease; they are designed to merely suppress the symptoms of disease. Meanwhile, these toxic chemicals wreck havoc on your health.
For more on preventing and reversing hypertension see my article.
Siphai I. Angiotensin-receptor blockade and risk of cancer: meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials. The Lancet Oncology. 2010;11:627-636.
Nahas R. Complementary and alternative medicine approaches to blood pressure reduction: An evidence-based review. Canadian Family Physician. November 2008;54(11):1529-1533.
Woolf, KJ. Nondrug interventions for treatment of hypertension. The Journal of Clinical Hypertension. November 1, 2011, 13(11):829-835.