Posts

Showing posts with the label hypertension

Health markers varying inexplicably? Do some detective work with HCE

Image
John was overweight, out of shape, and experiencing fatigue. What did he do? He removed foods rich in refined carbohydrates and sugars from his diet. He also ditched industrial seed oils and started exercising. He used HealthCorrelator for Excel (HCE)  to keep track of several health-related numbers over time (see figure below). Over the period of time covered in the dataset, health markers steadily improved. For example, John’s HDL cholesterol went from a little under 40 mg/dl to just under 70; see chart below, one of many generated by HCE. However, John’s blood pressure varied strangely during that time, as you can see on the chart below showing the variation of systolic blood pressure (SBP) against time. What could have been the reason for that? Salt intake is an unlikely culprit, as we’ve seen before . As it turns out, John knew that heart rate could influence blood pressure somewhat, and he also knew that his doctor’s office measured his heart rate regularly. So he got the dat...

The low modern potassium-to-sodium ratio: Big problem or much ado about nothing?

Image
It has been argued that the diets of our Paleolithic ancestors had on average a much higher potassium-to-sodium ratio than modern diets (see, e.g., Cordain, 2002). This much lower modern ratio is believed by some to be the cause of a number of health problems, including: high blood pressure, stroke, heart disease, memory decline, osteoporosis, asthma, ulcers, stomach cancer, kidney stones, and cataracts. But, is this really the case? The potassium-to-sodium ratio in ancient and modern times According to some estimates, our Paleolithic ancestors’ daily consumption was on average about 11,000 mg of potassium and about 700 mg of sodium (salt). That yields a potassium-to-sodium ratio of about 16. Today’s ratio in industrialized countries is estimated to be around 0.6. Just for the sake of illustration, let us compare a healthy Paleolithic diet food, walnuts, with a modern industrialized food that many believe to be quite healthy, whole-wheat bread. The table below (click on it to enlarge) ...