Friday, July 13, 2007

Hypertension in the US

Hi. My name is Mark and I have hypertension.

Group response: "Hello Mark!"

Hi. It's a bit awkward to talk about this publicly. It's not something I really ever wanted to admit. A mostly-trim, relatively fit, active male in his 30's who eats a lot of rabbit food who has high blood pressure? What was I doing wrong? It didn't make sense.

I asked my doctor about it a few years ago when the reading in his office was something like 145/90 at what age I should start being concerned about it. His reply? "Now." I was promptly put on a low-dosage beta blocker, something called Atenalol.

Great. In my mid-30's and already on a drug for life.

I had just kicked the inhaler habit for asthma and now it's replaced with a pill.

My doctor also suggested a book called "The High Blood Pressure Solution: A Scientifically Proven Program for Preventing Strokes and Heart Disease" by Richard D. Moore, M.D., PhD. Again, I thought, "Great." A self-help book for fat people that I don't need. However, for a brief while the thought of lifelong dependency on a pharmaceutical really pissed me off, so I bought the book for cheap used on the internet. It arrived a few days later. The cover's orange and red title between red heart-beat graph readings intimidated me. Really, I had just backpacked for days in the Cascades. This isn't for me.

As my 30's grew to a close I stayed on the Atenalol, doubling the dosage to a still low 25mg a day and the book gathered dust on the bookshelf.

Last month I turned 40 and, through a series of events I'll blame on the good luck of fate, I find myself in a mini-retirement - a term coined by Timothy Ferriss that I like quite a lot - and time to think about the drug issue again. I figured it's now or never, so I cracked Richard Moore's book and decided to see what I could do about it.

Thank you for listening.

Group: "Thank you Mark."

Moore's book is very intriguing and rife with medical information written for the layman. I am now almost finished with it and motivated to use its theory and recommendations to wean myself off Atenalol and live with a healthy blood pressure completely without drugs, like I did in my 20's.

There are probably many others like me. Your comments are welcomed and encouraged as this blog tracks progress, or lack thereof, of eliminating what I thought would be a life-long dependency on a little white pill.

Other topics will creep into the blog as well, from complete disdain for the United States' broken health care system to health tidbits.

It's probably important to know that I am not even close to a doctor. It's also very important that NO ONE discontinues any blood pressure medication without first consulting a doctor.

I write software for a living and am an active person who enjoys life, the thrills one can achieve when in good shape, and simply feeling good. And I hate the pharmaceutical industry.

I hope you enjoy and follow along.

Mark

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Hypertension, When to Treat?

The 18 year Framingham Blood Pressure study found increased risk of heart disease and death in people with increased blood pressure 140 to 160, and even more risk above 160.

If you examine the original data from the Framingham study, you will find computer smoothing of the data as published in the medical journals. This gives a smooth gradual line of increasing mortality as blood pressure goes up between 140 and 160. This is called the Linear Model. However, if you examine the raw data, as S. Port did as published in Lancet 1/15/2000, you will find a non-linear threshold of increased risk above 160 systolic, and no increased mortality below 160.

For a more complete review of this controversy in Blood Pressure guidelines, see my newsletter

Blood Pressure Pills for Hypertension, When to Treat? by Jeffrey Dach MD

Jeffrey Dach MD