Fasting to Naturally Reverse High Blood Pressure
“Fasting to Naturally Reverse
High Blood Pressure” Medically supervised water-only fasting
in the treatment of high blood pressure. A hundred seventy-four
consecutive patients were treated in an inpatient setting. First, a
few days of fruits and vegetables. This is to kind of clear out the gut
so they don’t become constipated, followed by 10 or 11 days of water-only
fasting, before transitioning them back to a whole food plant-based diet:
fruits, vegetables, whole grains, and legumes, which are beans, split
peas, chickpeas, lentils, nuts, and seeds, with
no animal products, processed foods, or
added salt, oil, or sugar. They all came in hypertensive,
over 140/90, but 9 out of 10, 89%, walked out
with pressures under 140/90. The average reduction in systolic
blood pressure was 37 points, which is remarkable compared to
other interventions, including drugs. And that was just the average drop.
Those that came in with really high pressures, like over 180,
experienced a 60-point drop. This is arguably the largest effect ever
published in the scientific literature.
And that was after they had all stopped
all their blood pressure medications. They conclude that medically
supervised water-only fasting appears to be a safe and effective
means of normalizing blood pressure. I explored the safety in a
previous video, and yes, extraordinarily effective,
but for how long? I mean, fasting is the least
sustainable diet out there. Interestingly, when they resumed feeding
them, their blood pressure dropped even further, suggesting fasting
could be used to kickstart the normalization of blood pressure
and then you could keep it down from then on with a
healthy enough diet. They were able to track down
a few dozen patients much later, and on average their
pressures remained down. We don’t know what
happened to the rest, but it shows that at least it can provide
more lasting benefits for some. A subsequent smaller study followed
up with people up to a year later, and the blood pressure reduction seemed
to hold, along with the weight loss, so presumably they stuck
with the healthier diet.
Now, no one should be fasting for
more than a day or two unsupervised, so this treatment certainly carries
a cost, but the entire cost appears to have just been recouped
within the first year just from decreased medical
care costs alone. An alternative is the Buchinger method
of fasting, popular in Europe, where instead of water only, people get 300 calories a day
of fruit juice and vegetable broth. It still needs to be done under
professional supervision, but at least people don’t have
to take time off work. People are randomized
to seven days of that and then followed up
four months later. After four months you’d think any
benefit from the one-week quasi-fast would have disappeared, but
their blood pressures ended up fifteen points lower
than the control group. Although long-term follow-up of
these subjects has been sporadic, the available data suggest that these
large reductions in blood pressure can be conserved in patients who
remain compliant with the follow-up diet.
In other words, a ‘cure’ for
hypertension may be feasible though, of course, if they
resumed the original diet that had made them
hypertensive in the first place that would presumably lead to a
resurgence of their blood pressure. And the fast may
help with that. The preliminary fast may help
people stick to healthier diets that would ordinarily have little
appeal to people accustomed to meretriciously salty and greasy meals—
that is an SAT word if I ever saw one. I had to Google that one:
Attractive but having in reality no value.
Sounds about right. The secret to long-term benefits
maybe in helping kickstart a healthier diet by cleansing our
the palate, which has been so deadened by hyper sweet, hyper salty, hyper fatty
foods. After not eating for a week, you’re regular, normal, healthy
real food tastes good again. Like the ripest peach in the world would
taste sour after a bowl of Fruit Loops, but fasting may re-sensitize our taste
buds such that you can enjoy something like corn on the cob
without the added butter and salt, so you get the best of both worlds:
tastes great and is less killing.
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