Participants: Don Miller, Agatha Thrash
Series Code: HYTH
Program Code: HYTH000161
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00:01 Hello, I'm Agatha Thrash a staff physician from
00:04 Uchee Pines Institute, and we have a very sobering, 00:09 very distressing problem that we would like to talk with you 00:12 about today and that is the problem of hypertension. 00:16 It has rightly been called a silent killer, 00:19 so for the next half an hour we will be talking about this, 00:22 We hope you will join us. 00:44 Welcome to Help Yourself to Health, 00:46 with Dr. Agatha Thrash of Uchee Pines Institute, 00:50 and now here is your host, Dr. Thrash. 00:55 Most people do not understand what is meant when we say 00:59 High Blood Pressure, in fact High Blood Pressure is defined 01:03 by different individuals in different ways. 01:05 Certain health professionals will call a certain thing 01:11 hypertension when another health professional will call 01:15 something else hypertension. 01:17 This problem is so irregular among physicians and others 01:24 that a few years ago my husband and I wrote this book called 01:28 Hypertension and Natural ways to treat your blood pressure. 01:32 This book covers the entire gamut of things that can be 01:39 done in the home by an individual who is not specially 01:43 trained in doing medical things to control the blood pressure 01:47 and to do what one can to keep from getting blood pressure. 01:50 Those people who have a family history of high blood pressure 01:56 they need to be very careful to watch their lifestyle 02:00 to make certain they don't come down with high blood pressure. 02:04 Now everybody has blood pressure but a lot of times people will 02:11 say, patients will say I have blood pressure. 02:14 Yes, we all do, it's a fact of our lives, 02:19 we must have blood pressure in order to circulate the blood. 02:23 I have asked my colleague Dr. Wynn Horsley to assist me 02:28 in talking with you about this subject. 02:30 I would like to introduce my colleague, 02:33 this is Dr. Wynn Horsley who is a Physiatrist and 02:36 works with us at Uchee Pines. 02:38 Dr. Horsley, maybe you could define 02:42 what high blood pressure is for us. 02:47 Can we start with normal blood pressure? 02:49 Oh yes, let's do! 02:50 As Dr. Agatha already said you have to have blood pressure, 02:57 that's what keeps the blood circulating and the heart then 03:01 is the main organ that gives that thrust to the blood 03:05 and puts pressure into the arteries 03:07 starting with the biggest artery leaving the heart, 03:09 the aorta. 03:10 That pressure is actually varying all the time 03:15 with every heartbeat you get a sudden swing up of the 03:19 blood pressure, and then between the heartbeats 03:22 that pressure is going down as the blood leaves that part 03:28 of the aorta near the heart and goes out to 03:30 more distant arteries. 03:32 What's tradition to be considered normal is figures 03:37 like 120/80, the units perhaps are of interest to some 03:45 of you, those are millimeters of mercury. 03:48 The same that is used to measure air pressure for weather. 03:54 So in the old fashioned, still used blood pressure cuffs 04:00 that are of the highest quality they have a column of mercury 04:03 and it's so many millimeters high when it will stop the blood 04:08 that is coursing through the arteries. 04:10 Now your question was when do we call it abnormally high? 04:14 Yes! That indeed is a good question 04:17 and a difficult one because of that irregularity that you've 04:20 said, it's changed through the years. 04:22 Yes! I've noticed that, it's not the same now that it was 04:25 when I was in medical school 50 years ago. 04:28 Yes, and in fact it has changed during my time too, 04:30 but I believe would it be 30/40 years ago they called the 04:35 upper limit of normal 160/95. Yes! 04:39 Something like that. Yes! 04:40 Then for at least the past 20 years or so it's been 04:47 considered that 140/90 is the dividing line between normal 04:54 and high blood pressure. 04:56 Recent evidence however indicates that people with 05:03 higher blood pressures get an incidence of bad things 05:06 like strokes. 05:07 In fact do better not just at 140/90 but that risk keeps 05:12 going down till you get to a figure like 120/80. 05:15 So instead of being just an average of good blood pressure 05:19 that should be considered an upper limit. 05:21 Yes! Absolutely! I can remember when I was in 05:24 Medical School, we spoke all the time of a person having 05:29 normal blood pressure if the systolic was no more than the 05:35 persons age. 05:37 So if they were 70 years old and their blood pressure was 05:40 170, we said well that is normal he's old and he's supposed to 05:45 have a high blood pressure and to some degree there is some 05:50 truth in that because if the arteries are very hard 05:54 and the kidneys have hard arteries and the 05:59 intestinal tract has hard arteries then of course 06:01 the person does need a little bit of an extra head of pressure 06:05 to get the blood into these various places. 06:10 But whatever the reason for the high blood pressure 06:15 it still is a very difficult situation for the body. 06:19 Well, you know you are pointing out this fact makes one realize 06:25 really this is one of the few diseases where people are 06:30 treating just one sign on physical exam, and as you said 06:35 it's silent, when really what needs to be treated is not 06:38 just the figures of the pressure but the underlying problem 06:42 that is causing that. 06:43 Absolutely! The point that you made about 06:46 someone that may in fact need that kind of pressure... 06:53 I saw that most graphically in my residency. 06:55 There was this old doctor, in fact he was a physician 07:01 who had had a stroke and he was on my unit on the floor 07:05 in the V.A. and his blood pressure was running about 07:11 180/100 and following him, some of the doctors there were 07:19 aiming at getting his blood pressure down to what are 07:23 considered normal figures, down around 140 or less 07:26 over 80. 07:27 One wise old doctor came by and pointed out, 07:31 you know this gentleman, former retired doctor 07:36 in our hands wasn't functioning well mentally 07:38 when you pushed his blood pressure way down 07:41 like this with drugs. 07:42 When you let it come back up to where the kidneys 07:44 were wanting it, in fact he functioned better. 07:46 So it points out we have to get it something very 07:49 fundamental in what's causing high blood pressure. 07:52 Now you mentioned the kidneys. How do the kidneys figure in 07:56 this thing with giving you good function of the brain, 08:01 or good function of the intestinal tract, 08:02 or even good function of the back? 08:05 They are the most central organ for blood pressure. 08:10 The kidneys in doing their work of purifying the blood 08:14 that comes through all the time, they are one could say 08:19 of necessity they need to have a certain pressure head 08:23 to do their job, otherwise they can't filter the blood well. 08:26 So if they are not getting enough, they are going to put 08:28 out substances, rennin, angiotensin, substances 08:32 that will force that blood pressure to be high enough 08:34 for the kidney to do a good job. 08:36 So the kidneys have a central role and to just in a 08:44 willy nilly way, just force the blood pressure down 08:46 without dealing with underlying problems is really 08:49 poor practice. 08:50 Yes, it's very poor practice. 08:52 One thing that we could probably point to as 08:55 a major player in this issue of blood pressure is 08:59 the question of salt intake. 09:02 There could be a long story told about how that 09:06 in the history of medicine came in and doctors gradually came 09:09 to understand it, the kidneys are the main organ handling 09:14 how much water is there in our body, particularly in the blood, 09:18 and how concentrated is that going to be in terms of 09:22 the sodium and chloride, the SALT that is contained 09:26 in that blood, so that all enters the picture. 09:30 The very tiny, tiniest of our arteries are involved in this. 09:37 Do you want to tell us about these little arterioles 09:41 and how they happen to be Key in this thing of the arteries? 09:46 Certainly, we have just been doing this in a class 09:50 We already mentioned the heart which is the big pump which 09:56 raises the pressure, in fact maybe I could show this 09:59 on the board, would that be alright? 10:05 We are going to say along here on this graph... 10:10 We are measuring blood pressure, let's say this is 50 of those 10:14 units of millimeters of mercury, up here is 100, 10:22 and if the individual has figures that are quite high 10:24 we might even get up to 200. 10:28 All the time, this is time going along here, 10:31 the heart is pumping, perhaps once every second 10:35 and with every heart pump from whatever the pressure was 10:38 at, you get a rise it that pressure in the big arteries 10:41 in the body and when that heart has finished it's 10:45 contraction of that left ventricle, then the valve 10:51 that it pumped the blood through snaps shut 10:55 and now that blood is in the aorta under pressure. 10:59 That pressure actually helps along with earlier during 11:06 the heart beat, now just the aorta which has been expanded 11:09 and has the blood under that elastic tension of the 11:12 artery wall, it is pushing that blood further along. 11:16 So the pressure during this time when the hear is resting 11:20 is gradually falling until we get another heart beat, 11:24 and then it suddenly rises and then it gradually falls 11:28 when it is relaxing again. 11:30 The pressure that the heart places in the blood 11:36 with each heartbeat into the aorta, this pressure is called 11:41 the systolic pressure, systole is the fancy word 11:46 the technical term for contraction of the heart. 11:51 During this period when the heart is no longer pumping 11:59 for nearly a second, this whole time it is just the 12:04 pressure that the arterial system gives, 12:08 or the resistance that the arteries give and it is 12:11 most specifically those tiny arteries that you mentioned 12:15 the arterioles that are barely visible to the eye. 12:18 Tiny little blood vessels that have plenty of circular 12:21 muscle fibers around them that can tighten or relax 12:26 and let the blood flow more easily. 12:28 That is what gives the rate at which this pressure 12:31 declines to the lowest point just before the next contraction 12:35 which is the diastolic pressure, and I think we are all 12:45 acquainted with how these two are combined when they give 12:48 blood pressure, they give one figure over another figure 12:52 so 120/80 would mean that we have a pressure of 120 12:59 which represents the hard work that the heart has to do with 13:03 every beat, and we have a pressure of 80 which represents 13:07 that lowest resting pressure and how much pressure is the 13:13 least that those arterioles and arteries for that matter 13:17 have to face all the time. 13:18 The fact that the Lord equipped us with arterioles that have 13:25 all that muscle in the wall, in fact the thickness of the 13:30 muscle wall is greater than the diameter of the lumen 13:35 of that little arteriole to be able to hold that pressure 13:42 on the blood as it circulates. 13:46 Now I have observed, and everybody has who practices 13:50 medicine that high blood pressure tends to 13:53 run in families. 13:55 Is there something about certain family genetics... 13:59 and are other diseases associated with this as well? 14:03 I am sure there is some but in medical circles 14:07 we often talk about this nature verses nurture. 14:12 It is really a very hard thing to separate out because 14:16 children that grow up with their parents don't only 14:21 inherit genes, they inherit eating patterns. 14:24 They inherit all kinds of habit patterns, 14:26 in fact even the things that make them angry 14:29 might be quite similar. 14:30 Yes! So you have an entanglement 14:34 of factors and since we can't change our genes 14:37 it behooves us to look closely at those other things that we've 14:39 been nurtured into doing. 14:41 Lifestyle is certainly vey important in that. 14:43 Well thank you very much and I'm just really happy 14:47 that Dr. Horsley could explain those things and has 14:51 a very nice way of talking about Anatomy and Physiology 14:55 which most people feel is these are some very 14:59 foreign Latin terms that I am not expected to understand 15:03 as just an ordinary human being. 15:05 Now I have asked also Don Miller who is one of my colleagues 15:11 at Uchee Pines who is a lifestyle counselor 15:14 to talk with you some things about the issues involved 15:18 in the high blood pressure. 15:20 What do you have for us Brother Don? 15:22 I think one of the most important things is 15:24 not so much to say you might have it is, 15:25 how can you get rid of high blood pressure or 15:27 how can you keep from making that appointment. 15:29 One of the main things that I can mention about how we can 15:34 lower our blood pressure because we got this heart 15:38 trying to pump it through our system and it makes the pressure 15:41 rise when we have some type of occlusion, 15:43 we've got some coronary plaques, 15:45 or whatever it might be. 15:46 There are some very nice things that we can do, 15:48 and there is a nice piece of equipment that we can use 15:51 to help us to lower that blood pressure. 15:55 Now it is an extremely expensive piece of equipment but 15:58 all of you have one in your home so I have called 16:01 for a demonstration for this piece of equipment, 16:03 so I am going to have this piece of equipment come out here 16:06 right now and show it. 16:07 This is the piece of equipment, this is my dear friend 16:10 Shannon Jenkins from Uchee Pines, one our Lifestyle 16:13 Educators students and a long time staff members child. 16:17 This, you might not know it but this is a piece of equipment 16:22 and I am so thankful that God has given us these 16:24 pieces of equipment. 16:25 You've got one right there sitting in your chair 16:27 inside your shoes, and this is one right here, 16:29 and the way we lower the blood pressure is by getting into 16:33 an exercise program. 16:34 Now I am going to show you that this particular piece of 16:38 equipment certain speeds, so the first speed that I want this 16:41 piece of equipment to work at is at a 62 year old woman 16:46 who doesn't get much exercise. 16:47 So now you are a 62 year old woman, 16:49 how fast would you turn on your speed for the exercise 16:52 that we are going to do? 16:53 Let's see you do the exercise speed for a 62 year old woman. 16:56 OK! Not to quick is it? 17:00 This is called running in place, now does that cost money? 17:04 Not much money, but this is a very important piece of 17:06 equipment and so are you, and so we want you to do these 17:09 nice simple things that you can do in your home. 17:12 So this is nice and slow, and I want to stress the fact that 17:15 if you are out of shape, you have been a couch potato 17:18 or whatever your problem might be, we want you to slow down 17:22 and start your exercise program slowly. 17:25 Now we are going to turn back the years on Shannon, 17:28 and take her back to what she really is, 17:30 so right now Shannon let's go back to sweet 16. 17:33 Let's see what type of exercise... Come on! 17:36 Turn it on now, we really got to hump it, we got to pump it, 17:39 we really have to get in there, you can see as she is getting 17:42 in there, her arms are rising, very high as a matter of fact, 17:44 If she was at home doing this she could raise her knees up 17:48 and touch her elbows to her knees, I won't make her do this 17:50 on 3ABN but we are going to have her do this for awhile 17:55 and now there are some benefits going on in this child's body 17:58 while she is doing this particular exercise. 17:59 One, she is getting exercise which is making her heart beat 18:03 more deeply and more rapidly which is going to make it stroke 18:08 a little bit deeper and slowly but surely that muscle 18:12 that never rests is going to get stronger, 18:14 so by running her heart muscle is getting stronger. 18:18 That in itself will make her blood pressure go down 18:22 over a period of time. 18:23 Second thing, exercise has been shown to lower blood sugar. 18:27 Blood sugar as it rises will make your blood pressure rise. 18:31 By exercising it makes your body utilize your blood sugars 18:36 much more effectively, so right now her blood sugars are 18:39 going down, so that is a good thing. 18:41 Another thing that is going down, 18:43 of course she doesn't need to go down to far, 18:44 is her weight, as she does this exercise her weight will fall. 18:49 We find that people who are overweight seem to have 18:52 more high blood pressure. 18:54 So if you have a weight problem do exercise, 18:57 and I am recommending this one it is not to clement. 19:00 Now if it is raining or snowing if it's icy, if it's cold, 19:03 if it's night time, whatever your problem is, 19:05 you can do this right there in your home, 19:07 so she is going to be loosing weight, another thing she's 19:10 going to be loosing here quite soon is going to be some 19:13 perspiration and some water. 19:14 After she gets done she is going to go over there and 19:17 drink a lot of water, and the more water we drink we will 19:21 eliminate that water, and every time you eliminate water 19:24 your body adds sodium to the water, so we void out the water 19:28 with some sodium, and we realize people who have 19:31 high blood pressure should be on a low salt diet. 19:34 So she will now be eliminating some salt from her diet, 19:37 right now she is loosing some weight, she probably doesn't 19:40 need to loose, she is building up her heart rate which we all 19:43 can do, she is lowering her blood sugar which is really 19:46 a great thing and I think this is a very simple effective way 19:51 to lower your high blood pressure. 19:53 If you are to old, start slowly, if you are young you 19:58 can start a little bit quicker, but always gauge it by your own 20:01 body, don't do it to the point of exhaustion. 20:04 We won't make her do it to the point of exhaustion, 20:06 and do not do it if it starts to hurt you. 20:08 The old mind set, if it hurts it must be good, 20:12 that's not the truth, if it hurts there is something wrong 20:15 so back off and try something else, especially if you 20:17 start having chest pains, that's not the time to keep 20:21 on doing... we are going to run through this pain. 20:22 You want to be intelligent in the pursuit of this 20:27 particular exercise. 20:28 Another thing that you can do to keep from injuring yourself 20:32 in the exercise... a couple of things. 20:34 One, you might want to be doing this running in place 20:37 on a pad, I know I ran for many of years, I was a 20:41 marathon runner and I ran on pavement, 20:43 and my knees are shot, and if I tried doing this on a 20:46 hard surface it might be just as bad because every time 20:49 she comes down, there is a lot of pressure hitting on that 20:52 knee joint, and so we want to run on something a little bit 20:55 softer, or have a good pair of shoes on. 20:56 If you have a tendency to loose your balance, 20:59 which some people might do, you might want to have 21:01 something there to have your hands on. 21:03 Just sort of hang on to that, whatever you can do 21:06 to keep yourself from hurting yourself during the exercise. 21:08 Just remember the first law of natural medicine, 21:11 as a matter of fact the first law of the Hippocratic Oath is 21:13 first, DO NO HARM. 21:15 Shannon is having no harm done to her right now 21:19 and I sort of appreciate her demonstration for you and 21:21 we want you to try this thing as soon as you can. 21:24 Now when you get done you slow the machine down. 21:27 Don't stop that machine! You can just slow the machine 21:29 down over there and we appreciate it so much. 21:32 Never just stop your exercise, you want to slowly back off 21:36 your exercise and you want to start it even if you are 21:38 in good shape every exercise program begin your exercise 21:42 in a slow fashion. 21:44 One last thing I want to mention about a good exercise program 21:47 is you exercise a muscle over just a few weeks period of time, 21:51 your body starts building a larger vascular system 21:55 because your body is saying, wait a minute, 21:57 this muscle needs more nutrients, needs more oxygen, 22:01 and so it start building a new vascular system. 22:04 The larger your vascular system in your muscles the lower 22:07 your blood pressure will be. 22:09 So these are some real nice benefits Dr. Thrash in something 22:12 as simple as the exercise in that most valuable 22:15 of all machines. 22:17 Your body, my body, Shannon's body, all of our bodies. 22:19 Yes! Very Valuable machines! 22:20 Very valuable machinery! 22:21 I am very thankful that you presented this on exercise, 22:25 because exercise will do marvels where many other types 22:31 of remedies will not be effective. 22:33 But Dr. Horsley and I would like to present some more things 22:38 with having to do with how to treat blood pressure. 22:41 When the blood pressure is high how we can make it to come down, 22:46 so Dr. Horsley do you have some things to say about that 22:49 and maybe some patients that you have had and 22:52 what you have done for them. 22:53 I do, I was just so interested a few years back when I read 22:58 about a doctor's experience with sun light. 23:01 That he would have patients go out and exercise 23:06 but he would have them expose a fair bit of their skin 23:10 to sun light, and he said that that had a definite effect 23:13 on lowering the blood pressure. 23:15 It was not just an immediate effect that lasts for a few 23:19 minutes, that one could understand that the heat 23:22 would bring a lowering of blood pressure by opening up 23:25 the arterioles, but he said it would last for up to 24 hours. 23:29 I started trying it. 23:32 One of the first patients that I tried it on 23:36 was this gentleman, a 60 year old black man, 23:42 who had pressures that were running about 180/100. 23:48 We had checked him in the room, and that is about 23:54 what it was running. 23:55 So I said let's go outside here onto the porch of the 24:00 building that we use and roll up the sleeves, 24:03 even pull up the pant legs some, so we did that 24:08 and I checked it, I checked it within about 2- 3 minutes. 24:12 I was probably a little premature I was just anxious 24:15 to see what was happening. 24:16 I was astounded, it went down to about 150/90. 24:20 Now that is a pretty big level for a drug that would be 24:26 very powerful, but there the sun was doing it. 24:28 It is amazing that with the simplest of things, 24:32 like just sunlight. 24:34 Can you get the same kind of thing with a person just 24:37 sitting in a tub of warm water? 24:41 You know warm water, even just lukewarm water 24:45 often will bring blood pressure down, and we use that 24:48 routinely at Uchee Pines when other things have been giving 24:53 some effect or little effect, not enough that we are 24:57 satisfied, a lukewarm bath will often help. 25:00 The bath works on a totally different principle from the sun 25:05 I believe. 25:06 I think that the bath with it's warming sends impulses up 25:12 to the brain that come from thousands of little nerves 25:16 that touch the water, so the actual touching of the water 25:20 I think is helpful and its temperature is good. 25:23 Then the sunlight, it has instantly more than just 25:28 warming, it does all those things with the Pro-vitamin D, 25:33 and Bilirubin and all those things that happen just 25:37 on instantaneous basis when a person walks into the sun. 25:41 I was quite surprised, and then to think that this lasts 25:44 for hours after, not just when the person is in the sun. 25:47 Now what else do you have? 25:49 Ok! More recently I saw a little add that one of our staff 25:56 members had there of a piece of equipment that was 26:01 just basically just checking on a person's breathing. 26:03 It was a little girdle that some company was selling 26:07 because they had a medical study that had shown 26:10 when people breathe more slowly the blood pressure goes down. 26:15 So they had enough facts there they said that the 26:21 average person was breathing about 20 times a minute, 26:25 and what they wanted a person to come down to was 26:28 10 times a minute. 26:29 Well, one of our folks at Uchee Pines has gotten into 26:35 a program where they do trials of breathing three times 26:37 a minute, 10 times a minute is not hard at all to do. 26:40 We had this Oriental woman recently that came 26:49 with rather high and variable blood pressure, 26:51 what they call Labile hypertension. 26:53 She had blood pressure, I believe the figure that 27:01 right at the time when I checked this was 185/95. 27:07 So she was I think breathing rather rapidly, she tended to be 27:13 a fairly tense person and so with her, 27:18 I would count with her, breathe in, hold it, 27:23 breathe out, and we have so many seconds in each phase 27:26 and when we re-checked it after two minutes of doing that 27:32 her blood pressure was 145/85. 27:36 Amazing! Well that certainly is very 27:39 amazing that such simple things such as the rate 27:44 at which you breathe and how much sunlight you get 27:47 on your skin, and all of these things are free to us 27:51 just for the asking from our Heavenly Father. |
Revised 2014-12-17