Comment by distcs | Hacker News Reader

Comment by distcs | Hacker News Reader

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> The biggest risk factors are high blood pressure, diabetes, high cholesterol, and obesity, all of which can clog and damage the arteries and blood vessels that carry oxygen-rich blood to the heart.

> While some of these conditions may be genetic, more often they’re brought on by years of unhealthy habits like poor diet and a sedentary lifestyle that typically begin early in childhood

> COVID is known to activate inflammatory responses in the body and make blood thicker and stickier, Yang said, which can make infected people more susceptible to blood clots that can clog arteries and lead to heart attack. However, it’s still not clear why younger adults appear to be more vulnerable to COVID’s cardiovascular complications.

> The AHA recommends following “Life’s Essential 8”: key measures that, if practiced, can improve and maintain your cardiovascular health. These include a healthy diet, regular physical activity, no tobacco smoking, and sufficient sleep, as well as managing your weight, cholesterol, blood sugar, and blood pressure.

Life's Essential 8 from https://www.heart.org/en/healthy-living/healthy-lifestyle/li...

1. Eat Better (whole foods, lots of fruits and vegetables, lean protein, nuts, seeds, and cooking in non-tropical oils such as olive and canola)

2. Be More Active (2½ hours of moderate or 75 minutes of vigorous physical activity per week)

3. Quit Tobacco

4. Get Healthy Sleep (7-9 hours of sleep each night)

5. Manage Weight (Optimal BMI is 25)

6. Control Cholesterol

7. Manage Blood Sugar

8. Manage Blood Pressure (Levels less than 120/80 mm Hg are optimal)

> 8. Manage Blood Pressure

Anyone on here have advice on this? I eat primarily vegan and run for at least an hour a day (70-90km/wk), have a resting heart rate in the low 40s, have good (middle of healthy range) cholesterol, blood glucose, and A1C, and yet my blood pressure is persistently in the 130-140 over 70 range. I can’t figure out how to get the top number down and my doctor just sort of shrugs that it’s nothing to worry about but I suspect this is less about the science (which seems to support even lower than 120/80 is healthier) and more due to the baseline blood pressures he sees have been increasing over time due to obesity, inactivity, poor diets, etc.

Anyone in a similar boat who has managed to achieve improvements?

I have the same problem and so does my dad. Since you have everything zipped up, there's good reason to assume it's genetic.

You can squeeze a few more points of BP by losing weight if you aren't already bottomed out. While it was the last intervention I tried, going from 20-25% to 15% body fat dropped my systolic 10pts consistently. When I go back to 20% BF, I'm back up 10pts of systolic. It's very sensitive.

The first reason I went plant-based was to optimize my cholesterol since it felt like the only lever I could pull since I'm already jacked and thin. If I'm going to hover around 125/70, I figure I might as well have optimal cholesterol, and I definitely was able to really shrink my LDL (ApoB).

I realized I'm sensitive to sodium. I've mostly replaced sodium salt with potassium salt. But I also noticed that caffeine can add 10 points to the top BP number even a day later. My best BP numbers have been when I've avoided caffeine and sodium for 48 hours.

I've considered experimenting with BP meds but never was motivated enough to pull the trigger.

Hey I really appreciate the comment on Caffeine. I have been talking my measurements in the morning before having coffee, assuming 24 hours without caffeine would be sufficient to eliminate the effect but perhaps I am a slow metabolizer too and should try going without coffee for a few days and seeing if that changes anything.

For body fat, are you doing Dexa scans or how do you measure? My bathroom scale spits out numbers but I doubt they are trustworthy.

Do you drink filtered or unfiltered coffee? Unfiltered coffee is known to raise cholesterol because it contains high levels of cafestol.

There was a study[1] recently about isometric exercises (wall sits, planks, etc.) being most beneficial type of exercise for lowering blood pressure.

I've also anecdotally found that supplementing magnesium glycinate seemed to help.

Perhaps consider getting some thyroid blood tests? (T3/T4 free, TSH) Mine was elevated which contributed to higher blood pressure.

Also since you're vegan, perhaps check for vitamin, mineral, and nutritional deficiencies.

[1] https://bjsm.bmj.com/content/early/2023/07/02/bjsports-2022-...

The magnesium glycinate is good for your bowels too. I take Magnesium L-Threonate and I think it helps. And in general, ER doctors add Magnesium intravenously when people have a hypertensive crisis.

I dealt with something similar, struggled for years wondering why no dietary intervention would touch my systolic which would sit around 125-130 over 60.

As hard as it was I finally ditched caffeine which instantly dropped my systolic down to the 110-115 range. Also feel much better overall. I wasn't even consuming an egregious amount either, always limiting myself to a max of 400mg, typically in the range of 250mg a day.

Another commenter mentioned caffeine. I have been taking my BP measurements in the morning before having a coffee, but perhaps I am a slow metabolizer and the effects linger for a few days. I am going to listen to you and the other commenter and try ditching caffeine to see what impact this has on my BP over several days. We’ll see! Thanks!

I'm in the same boat as you. My diet is mainly Mediterranean, and blood tests show no abnormalities (I do it 1-2 times yearly). I don't exercise but score 250-400 Heart Points weekly by walking or intense hiking. I firmly believe that stress is a primary factor in hypertension. If you are an anxious person, maybe even more so. Another factor to blame can be loneliness; still hoping for credible research that shows any correlation.

Unfortunately, I don't see a path to eat, meditate or exercise out of it if you in the good shape already. But controlling sodium intake can help to offset some numbers. To control it, I take medications and must continue taking them permanently.

I have a feeling you're probably right about stress and HT.

I strongly believe everyone needs to lift weights. For me it helps with stress. It's a great way to funnel all the days work BS out of your body.

I feel super energized and at the top of the world, even after a quick 20 minute session.

As people get older and they lose muscle/bone density they have a habit of falling down and breaking things, so it's never to late to start. That's my main long term concern.

Exercising helps, no doubt. I see it as good stress, controlled stress that trains your body to deal with bad stress. There are other ways too. I get the same level of excitement when I take cold showers.

My back prevents me from lifting weights again. But I'm happy for those who can and do it.

I’ve been vegan for over 11 years, but my blood pressure has been a problem for a long time. Heart disease and high blood pressure runs in my family. My weight is fine. I walk about 4 miles a day. My CT calcium score is 0. My cholesterol is fantastic. I don’t smoke, I don’t use other drugs, I don’t use caffeine. Sodium is a big issue with me, but even when I keep it under 1500mg, BP is still too high. Alcohol is also a factor. It’s bad when I drink, but even when I go sober for a month it still just isn’t “normal”. One challenge is that no drinking, strict diet (particularly the sodium), etc. all at once is absolutely miserable to follow. I’m also a high stress and anxiety type of person with trouble sleeping. Perhaps correlating blood pressure with good sleep and less perceived stress would yield some insight there.

Admittedly, I am inconsistent in high intensity exercise. So in addition to improving that, I’d like to try the wall squats and planks in the recent articles others have mentioned.

My doctor has repeatedly had to remind me that there’s no shame or loss in having to take medication to control it, as long as I’m doing my best with all the other stuff. A low dose of atenolol sets me right (although I don’t like that it limits your heart rate). I’m currently trying lisinopril, doesn’t seem to work as well. I would still prefer to be off BP meds and I hope those other improvements will work, but using meds is better than letting high blood pressure run uncontrolled.

Recently I lowered my blood pressure to acceptable levels with a combination of

  - lower stress
  - DASH diet with low carbs in evenings
  - 1,5 grams Omega3 from seaweed oil per day
  - lower salt intake even more

Haven’t tried isometric exercises yet, but do exercise more (intense) than you seem to do. Drink low amounts (15grams beans) of top quality coffee, haven’t tried ditching it as suggested elsewhere in this thread. As I’m low on animal proteins, getting 25grams of a good combination of proteins per meal can be difficult, especially as I consider a good meal part of the pleasures of social life.

Get your doc to check your potassium/sodium levels. If your sodium is on the high end, and potassium low: check your aldosterone levels.

I had that, turned out to be an adenoma on my adrenal gland that was flooding me with aldosterone. That’s a hormone That controls your k/na balance - which controls your bp.

You’re running for fun/challenge, not for health. It’s not a surprise that your health isn’t improving. A single 10km run per week in 1h aiming for 40min, an interval run sprinting as hard as possible and casual short runs in between will improve your numbers while also not overexerting your body.

Something that's pretty easy and beneficial is to regularly donate blood, also helps to clear out things like heavy metal build up, although you might need to be careful of getting low in some like iron.

> 5. Manage Weight (Optimal BMI is 25)

The target range for BMI is 18.5 to 24.9.

At 25, you're already overweight. [1]

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Body_mass_index

AFAIR, 'someone' changed that in the nineties down from 28. For whatever reason. Furthermore BMI does not discriminate between muscle mass, bone mass, and fat mass. And to top that, it does not disriminate between male & female. It is a completely overrated value, IMHO doing more harm than having beneficial use cases.

I will note that my BMI is 25 and i have a 6 pack. It's not perfect and really is just a rough guide. But i guess its a moot point since bodybuilders are already aware of that.

Yeah, BMI doesn't work well if you have a ton of muscle, but it's a simple measure that works well in 90% of cases.

If you know that BMI isn't accurate, you probably already know what you need to do about yours.

I guess it depends on what you mean by "works", but to my untrained eye BMI doesn't work especially well for individuals in general. It was designed to measure large populations using routinely collected statistical data, not to inform individual lifestyle and medical decisions. These days we have much more effective methods to evaluate metabolic and cardiovascular health instead of using a metric that's a proxy of a proxy, but calculating BMI and applying a (largely arbitrary) label is dirt-cheap by comparison to all of those; it requires no special expertise, expensive equipment, time-consuming procedure, or thoughtful analysis.

It also doesn't work if you're at all far outside of the average height. This is fine for population level statistics (which is what BMI is for) but not for individual health measures. If I were to be on the lower end of "healthy" BMI I would be severely malnourished.

Yeah, best way is to just get a dexa, lots of places offer them and they're very affordable.

>non-tropical oils

There's a growing movement claiming saturated fats(coconut, palm, animal) are not as bad as once thought and that high levels of polyunsaturated fatty acid(like Omega-6) found in seed oils(canola, soybean, sunflower, etc) are very bad. Hopefully we can get more research into this.

We already do have research into it which is why anti-seed-oil orthorexic influencers wave their hands over narratives rather than research.

Here’s a good round up: https://www.the-nutrivore.com/post/a-comprehensive-rebuttal-...

Any kind of food can be harmful when eaten in excess, even when it is required for surviving, but in smaller quantities.

Oils with high content of linoleic acid (omega-6), like cold-pressed sunflower oil (which is also very rich in vitamin E) are very healthy in smaller quantities, e.g. 15 to 20 milliliter per day, but they can become harmful in too large quantities, e.g. more than 50 milliliter per day.

For instance, a combination of 50 milliliter per day of EV olive oil with 20 milliliter per day of cold-pressed sunflower oil gives a fatty acid profile that is close to optimal, according to the current knowledge.

Eating only olive oil would require a much greater quantity of oil for providing enough linoleic acid and vitamin E, which would provide too many calories for a sedentary lifestyle.

Eating only sunflower oil in an amount enough to provide an adequate fraction of the daily calories would provide too much linoleic acid.

So only a mixture can satisfy all criteria.

With saturated fats, the effects are similar, in smaller quantities they are healthy, but in large quantities they can be harmful. Olive oil, avocado oil and various kinds of nuts, e.g. almonds, hazelnuts, cashew, pistachio and a few others have a good balance between oleic acid and saturated fats.

What's in olive oil? It seems to be consistently good, no?

Canola oil is not necessarily good for health and is increasingly associated with various ailments including Macular Degeneration.

The only links I've been able to find on Google that mention canola oil and macular degeneration say canola oil helps slow or prevent macular degeneration.

Who funds heart.org?

Oops, I think you meant to google that!

the AHA. Who funds the AHA?

Largely pharmaceutical companies[1] https://www.heart.org/-/media/Files/Finance/21_22_Pharma_Fun...

Novartis Novo Nordisk Inc. Pfizer Alexion Pharmaceuticals Inc. Bayer Healthcare Pharmaceuticals Inc Boehringer Ingelheim Pharmaceuticals

all being the top contributors.

Largely? Pharmaceutical companies only make up 3.8% of revenue according to the document you posted.

Food producers pay the AHA for use of the “Heart-Check” certification mark on certain products, like meat and cereal.

The maker of Crisco virtually launched the AHA as a nation-wide powerhouse in 1948 by designating a $17 million grant.

Where is and how much of that type of funding accounted?

https://www.heart.org/en/about-us/2021-2022-annual-report

Oh if only that information were easily available! (https://www.heart.org/-/media/Files/Finance/Pharma-Funding-D....)

American Heart Association.

> COVID is known to activate inflammatory responses in the body and make blood thicker and stickier

The mechanism that causes this is the spike protein (this is well studied now), and applies - perhaps not equally - to COVID infection and COVID immunization

But I assume only during the time of infection/immunization and not afterwards, as the blood should return to its usual "thin" state.

Presumably. Are there any studies that show for how long the spike protein is in the blood after infection or immunization?

Yes, the manufacturer's own biodistribution studies showed that it was detectable in the spleen, kidneys, ovaries, testicles, and bone marrow etc until at least 48h after. At the end of the study, some markers were still increasing but they didn't bother to find out when it peaked and declined.

Note that this is in complete opposition to the original claims during the vaccine campaign that the vaccine stayed local in the arm.

https://youtu.be/fVNFFtmb9gA

48 hours is well within the immunization period. We are talking about whether blood is still thicker weeks or months afterwards.

Wow. How is this not in the news?

Exactly!

I could see that being the case for someone with sever unhealthy habits.

But is it plausible for young healthy athletes who exercise, sleep, eat well, and generally take care of themselves?

Asking opinion for a friend.

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