High blood pressure, also known as hypertension, is rather common in the United States and on Long Island. It affects about one-third of all adults living in the according to the CDC.  A concerning part of high blood pressure is its ability to have serious effects on the body with no obvious symptoms. For this reason, high blood pressure is often referred to as the “silent killer”.  About one out of every five adults are unaware they are even suffering high blood pressure!

High blood pressure puts your health and quality of life in great danger. If it is left untreated, it can lead to several severe health issues. Listed below are a few health issues hypertension can lead to:

  • Heart Attack – High blood pressure damages arteries that can become blocked and prevent blood from flowing to tissues in the heart muscle.
  • Stroke – High blood pressure can cause blood vessels in the brain to burst or clog more easily.
  • Heart failure – The increased workload from high blood pressure can cause the heart to enlarge and fail to supply blood to the body.
  • Kidney disease or failure – High blood pressure can damage the arteries around the kidneys and interfere with their ability to effectively filter blood
  • Vision loss– High blood pressure can strain or damage blood vessels in the eyes.

For all of these reasons, it is crucial that you stay up to date with your doctors and seek help if it is needed. An excellent opportunity to gain control of the high blood pressure and other cardiovascular diseases is lifestyle modification. Incorporating lifestyle strategies into your treatment can substantially improve your blood pressure, and potentially decrease use of medications. In a well-known DASH study, participants on a low-sodium diet enriched with green leafy vegetables experienced 8-10 mm Hg decrease in their systolic blood pressure, equivalent to one blood pressure medication.

At the Integrative Cardiology Center of Long Island, our novel approach includes a simple, self-administered saliva test strip evaluation of your dietary nitrates, main nutritional ingredients found in green leafy vegetables and beets that increase vascular levels of nitric oxide (NO), a potent vasodilator responsible for vascular health and blood pressure reduction. Our office-based vascular reactivity testing with Endothelix yields non-invasive blood pressure measurement that guides personalized nutritional and supplement effort. Finally, our cardiogenomic evaluation provides detailed SNP analysis to evaluate individual imbalances in the nitric oxide generating biochemical pathways. This evaluation is a critical step for anyone who considers arginine or citrulline supplements. While these supplements are very popular for blood pressure reduction, their use may be potentially counter-productive in those individuals whose metabolic machinery uses them as precursors to generate reactive nitrogen species, called peroxynitrite, a toxic and corrosive evil cousin of NO.

Whether you live on Long Island, or anywhere in the US, or even abroad,  contact Integrative Cardiology Center of Long Island to obtain professional advice in contemporary holistic heart care.