My Thoughts On High Blood Pressure

Most people know that high blood pressure means an increase in pressure in the blood vessels of our body. If we think about a tube with fluid flowing through it at normal pressure, we can then think about what things would cause it to increase in pressure. An increase in the overall volume of fluid in the tubes would do it, like when the kidney gets a signal to retain fluid. An increase in the volume of fluid that needs to flow through the tube at a given time (flow rate) would do it, like if the body got the signal to deliver blood to tissue faster. A decrease in the space in the tube in which the fluid has to flow would also do it, like if the body gets signals to constrict the blood vessels. And lastly, a loss of flexibility of the blood vessels, like when there is a build-up of atherosclerosis, this can also decrease the space in which the blood has to flow as well. Of course, all of these things could happen at the same time too, which is usually the case.

Before we get into why these things could happen resulting in an increase the pressure in the blood, it will be useful to look at how blood pressure is measured and how our body regulates blood pressure. It is measured by taking systolic and diastolic pressure measurements of an artery. The systolic is the pressure measured when the ventricles of the heart are contracting, and the diastolic is the pressure when the ventricles of the heart are not contracting. If you follow my blog, you have read about how the heart is not the main mover of the blood and that a contracting heart is not enough force to move the blood throughout the body. However, the contraction of the heart and opening and closing of heart valves does create momentary pressure changes in the system that give us measurements of blood pressure and the sensation of a pulse in our arteries.

The body regulates blood pressure in an automatic way, meaning it is not under conscious control. The body just does it, just like you breathe without thinking about it. Regulation of blood pressure starts in the kidney. The kidney is always sensing fluctuations in blood pressure and responds accordingly. If pressure gets too low the kidney will secrete a substance called Renin from its juxtaglomerular cells. Renin then goes into the circulation. The liver continuously makes and releases a substance called angiotensinogen into the blood stream, and when renin appears in the blood stream and encounters angiotensinogen it converts it to a substance called Angiotensin I. Once Angiotensin I is present in the blood, then an enzyme called angiotensin converting enzyme (ACE), which is also always present in the blood stream, starts converting Angiotensin I to Angiotensin II. The presence of Angiotensin II then triggers things in the body that raise blood pressure. It stimulates the production of aldosterone in the adrenal gland, which triggers sodium and fluid retention that will increase the volume of blood raising blood pressure. It stimulates vasoconstriction of blood vessels increasing the pressure in them. It also stimulates the sympathetic nervous system which quickens the delivery of blood to tissues by increasing flow of blood and therefore pressure. Once the pressure in the blood has been increased sufficiently, the kidney senses this, lowers the production of renin, and the whole system down regulates.

The system works well, and it is the classic negative feedback loop seen in many regulatory systems in the body. But when the system gets improperly stimulated it creates what we know as chronic high blood pressure, which is associated with atherosclerosis, heart attacks, heart failure, and stokes, as well as dementia, kidney disease, and eye damage. But I want to make something clear, I do not think that high blood pressure causes all of these things. I think the things that cause high blood pressure are also the driving forces behind those chronic diseases. High blood pressure has been associated, or seen at the same time, as many of these conditions, but I have not seen anything that makes me think it is directly the cause of those associated ailments. I do think that higher blood pressure can make some of those diseases worse, but I do not think that high blood pressure can cause them on its own. And high blood pressure usually does not happen unless the other things that cause those chronic diseases are present first.

The first reason I think this is because raising blood pressure is a normal and essential thing that the body is supposed to do. It is one of the ways the body adapts to ever changing environments. One of the best indicators of health is the ability to adapt to different environments. For example, if someone were to go from standing still to a dead sprint, that is a huge environmental change that the body must adapt to. If the average teenager were to do this, they are much more likely to be able to adapt to that change. Whereas the average eighty-year-old would not be able to adapt to this as well, and if they were forced to do this it just might kill them through a failure of the body to adapt. The eighty-year-old has lost the robustness of their adaptive mechanisms. This is why I think things like Heart Rate Variability, which measures your ability to healthily go back and forth between a stress and non-stress state, or being metabolically flexible and having the ability to readily go back and forth between burning carbohydrates and fats, are extremely good measures of health, especially as we age.

If blood pressure is elevated, it is not because the body is doing something it is not supposed to, it is because it is getting the signal to keep the blood pressure elevated. It is doing exactly what it is supposed to, and if it didn’t do it then you probably wouldn’t be alive because your body is not adapting. The problem comes when we get improper signaling telling the body to unnecessarily adapt by chronically maintaining an increase in blood pressure. But it is the things that cause the improper signaling that are the true culprits in the association between high blood pressure and heart disease, eye damage, kidney disease, and dementia.

There are three main culprits when it comes to imbalances in the body that create chronic high blood pressure. The first is that the body does not get enough radiant energy applied to it. In my blog post called “Is the heart really a pump” I go into detail about how the heart is not the main mover of the blood and how the interaction between the formation of 4th phase water on the lining of arteries and the blood in the artery creates an energy gradient that stimulates blood flow without the pumping of the heart. This has been proven by a graduate student at University of Washington, he is awaiting publication. He was able to show that when he stopped the heart of a chick embryo that the blood continued to move for quite some time through these mechanisms and the more radiant energy he applied to the system the faster and longer the blood would continue to flow. The ability of the body to maintain blood flow in this manner is dependent on enough radiant energy being applied to the system. If enough radiant energy (in the form of infrared light from the sun and contact with the Earth) is not provided to the body, then this does not happen as efficiently. If the body cannot create the blood flow it needs due to lack of radiant energy, then it will adapt by constricting blood vessels so that there is less space in them which in turn creates higher pressure and quicker flow. The same thing we see when we put our thumb partially over the outflow of a water hose. The speed at which the water comes out quickens.

We have evidence that this is very likely what is going on through studies done with infrared light exposure. One study that exposed rats to artificial infrared light rays found, “significant decreases in heart rates and systolic and mean blood pressure”. (1) Another study found that average blood pressure was decreased in people through 20 minutes of infrared sauna use 3x/week for 3 months. (2) One last study looked to see if the increase in Vitamin D from sunlight exposure could explain the decreases in blood pressure associated with sunlight exposure. The authors states, “we conclude that although 25(OH)D concentration is inversely associated with [systolic blood pressure], 25(OH)D did not explain the association of greater sunlight exposure with lower blood pressure”. (3) It didn’t explain it because the increase in Vitamin D is not what causes the drop in blood pressure, it is the radiant energy doing this. By applying infrared light to the body, we improve the mechanisms of blood flow by 4th phase water production and the body can relax the constriction of the blood vessels because the blood is flowing just fine without needing to constrict the vessels.