Seven Keys to defeat hypertension and unlock overall health potential.

An estimated one in every three American adults-65 million in all-has high blood pressure, or hypertension. In general, the older you are, the greater your chance of developing high blood pressure. Once high blood pressure develops, it usually lasts a lifetime unless steps are taken to control it.

More than two-thirds of the Americans with hypertension are taking at least one medication for their afflictions. Following the Seven Keys that make up the Great Physician's prescription for health and wellness can set you down the right road toward lowering your high blood pressure and regaining your health. This strategy for defeating hypertension is based on the Seven Keys to unlock your God-given health potential first described in The Great Physician's Rx for Health and Wellness.

The Great Physician's Rx for High Blood Pressure

By Jordan Rubin Joseph Brasco

Thomas Nelson

Copyright © 2007 Jordan Rubin and Joseph Brasco
All right reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-7852-1922-4

Contents

Introduction: Down for the Count................................................................................vKey #1: Eat to Live.............................................................................................1Key #2: Supplement Your Diet with Whole Food Nutritionals, Living Nutrients, and Superfoods.....................35Key #3: Practice Advanced Hygiene...............................................................................42Key #4: Condition Your Body with Exercise and Body Therapies....................................................49Key #5: Reduce Toxins in Your Environment.......................................................................58Key #6: Avoid Deadly Emotions...................................................................................65Key #7: Live a Life of Prayer and Purpose.......................................................................69The Great Physician's Rx for High Blood Pressure Battle Plan....................................................75Notes...........................................................................................................99About the Authors...............................................................................................103

Chapter One

KEY #1

Eat to Live

When football great Joe Montana learned he had high blood pressure, he joked that his kids employed a "zone defense" to keep him from reaching for the salt shaker at the family dinner table.

As mentioned in the Introduction, it'll take a lot more than hiding the salt shaker to lower your intake of sodium, which is the first thing doctors suggest when you have high blood pressure. The way I view things, anyone with hypertension who circles a buffet table before an afternoon NFL doubleheader should be gang-tackled because most snack foods-zesty tortilla chips, salted popcorn, wedges of imported cheese, or sliced wieners with toothpicks-contain high levels of sodium.

Sodium is a ubiquitous ingredient found in zillions of boxed, packaged, frozen, and bagged foods-such as pretzels and potato chips-but it's also hidden in many processed foods like ketchup and salad dressing. Even something sweet can have sodium: a grande Starbucks Java Chip Frappuccino contains 310 milligrams of sodium, and one Krispy Kreme Glazed Chocolate Cake doughnut has 310 milligrams, or around 15 percent of your daily allowance. It shouldn't surprise anyone that the average American eats two to three times the amount of salt that he or she should.

Pass the Herbamare, Please If salty foods are an acquired taste, then this nation is hooked on salt. An estimated one-fourth of our sodium intake comes from salt added to a boiling pot of water or sprinkled on our food by restaurant cooks or those of us in the family kitchen. In addition, millions reach for a salt shaker each day and mindlessly douse their hot entrees with salt without tasting it first. I never use regular table salt at home or away, to use a football term. When my food can use a little seasoning, I reach for a shaker of Herbamare, a flavorful blend of sea salt and fourteen organic herbs such as leek, cress, chive, parsley, garlic, and basil. A Swiss medical scientist named Alfred Vogel, M.D., developed Herbamare years ago. If my wife, Nicki, is cooking up a storm-or if I have kitchen duty, since I enjoy cooking every now and then-we'll also use Celtic Sea Salt, RealSalt, or Himalayan Crystal Salt. These natural salts have nothing in common with table salt, which is 97.5 percent sodium chloride and 2.5 percent chemicals such as iodine and moisture absorbents. Regular table salt has been chemically cleaned in the production process and is not even in the same health league as "organic" salts that come from the ocean floor or pristine sources like the Himalayas. "Natural crystal salt does not contribute to high blood pressure like typical table salt," said my friend, Dr. Joe Mercola of Mercola.com, which is why Celtic Salt, Herbamare, and Himalayan Crystal Salt can be found in our home.

Reducing salt intake in your diet will be as difficult as evading a blitzing cornerback unless you adopt the first key of the Great Physician's prescription, which is "Eat to Live." This key places a heavy emphasis on doing two things:

1. Eating what God created for food. 2. Eating food in a form that is healthy for the body.

Following these two vital concepts will give you a great chance to emerge victorious in your quest to push down those high blood pressure levels and put you on the road toward living a healthy, vibrant life.

To successfully lower your intake of sodium, you will have to be intentional about what you eat from this day forward, especially if your diet is high in processed foods. That's where more than 80 percent of the sodium in most people's diets comes from. I'm convinced that too many people coast through life without thinking longer than a TV timeout about the significance of what they're eating, which is why we're having a national problem with high blood pressure. Most folks blithely eat their favorite snacks and comfort foods, largely unaware that too much sodium-especially the "inorganic" kind-causes blood pressure to rise, which makes their hearts work progressively harder to pump enough blood to the body's tissues and organs.

Part of the blame can be laid at the feet of modern media, which often broadcasts-especially during football games-alluring and effective commercials for a variety of high-sodium foods, including deep-dish, stuffed-crust, double-cheese Italian sausage pizza, for example. Before you know it, you're calling Domino's during halftime and asking them to deliver a large hand-tossed MeatZZa Feast pizza to your front door. Just two slices-or one-fourth of a large pizza-contains 1,620 milligrams of sodium, or 70 percent of the recommended daily amount.

The American Heart Association recommends that most people limit their daily sodium intake to 2,300 milligrams per day. That's tough to follow since the standard American diet-boxed cereal or ham and eggs in the morning, cheeseburger and salty fries for lunch, and a take-out pepperoni pizza and toasted garlic bread for dinner-contains way too much sodium, something in the order of 4,000 to 6,000 milligrams a day.

Read the Food Labels Closely The US Food and Drug Administration has developed these definitions that appear on food packages to assist consumers watching their sodium intake: "low sodium" means the food has 140 milligrams or less of sodium per serving "very low sodium" means the food has 35 milligrams or less of sodium per serving "salt-free" means the food has 5 milligrams or less of sodium per serving "light in sodium" means the food has at least 50 percent less sodium than the original version of the food "reduced sodium" means the food has at least 25 percent less sodium than the original version of the product

Some Better Choices

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