Forget vampires, garlic can be used to balance your blood pressure too.

Forget vampires, garlic can be used to balance your blood pressure too.

Did you know that over 5 million Canadians are living with high blood pressure but an estimated 40% of them are not even aware of their condition?

High blood pressure, also referred to as ‘hypertension’, occurs when the force of the blood against the walls of the blood vessels is too high. High blood pressure occurs when the blood is pumped with great difficulty against the arteries by a person’s heart which over time begins to damage the lining of the blood vessels.  Chronic high blood pressure can cause damage to vital organs like the heart, brain and kidneys when the condition is not managed.

There are many natural ways to prevent and control high blood pressure including a change in lifestyle choices such as physical activity and exercise, reduced salt intake, eating a healthy well balanced diet, minimizing and/ or eliminating alcohol and smoking and maintaining a healthy body weight.

One natural supplement that you can look into for reducing your high blood pressure is garlic.  Studies show that garlic can lower elevated blood pressure levels by as much as 10% by reducing systolic and diastolic pressure.  (Your ‘systolic’ reading is the top number and your ‘diastolic’ is the bottom number when you receive a blood pressure reading – e.g. 120/80.)  Aside from garlic, other natural treatments for high blood pressure are Coenzyme Q10, fish oil, folic acid and hawthorn.

Research shows that garlic is as effective as prescription medications but have yet to figure out why.  Garlic, in fact, is great for many health ailments including colds and flus, skin health and more.  It is safe and effective but one must also be aware that garlic is also a blood thinner and that it should not be combined prescription blood thinners or other natural blood thinners like vitamin E.  Also, you should definitely not supplement with garlic for 2 weeks before and 4 to 5 weeks after surgery due to its blood thinning properties.

Now, other than eating garlic, you need to make sure that you taking care of the easy stuff in life like drinking water.

Why?

Because your body needs it, of course! Our bodies are made up of approximately 70% water.  When it is dehydrated, our body stores up as much water as possible by lowering productivity of the kidneys and constricting the vascular system – this results in higher pressure within our cardiovascular system resulting in high blood pressure.

So how much water should you drink?

The quick answer is “enough to make you not thirsty”, as the symptom of thirst is actually a sign of dehydration.

Don’t be fooled into thinking that eating garlic and drinking water will rebalance your blood pressure though.  Your health, or lack thereof, is a combination of many things including physical fitness, dietary intake and emotional wellness.

You could attempt to use Google as your healthcare practitioner, but in order to do your best and receive optimal results, your best bet is to book an appointment with a holistic practitioner that will look at all aspects of your life and make the best recommendations and guidelines based upon your needs.