Foods are one source for the vitamins your body needs, taking supplements is another way of ingesting vitamins. Getting the right vitamins for your body is imperative for people with high blood pressure problems, but we need to first talk about absorption.
Absorption and digestion is very important and the bottom line is IF YOU CAN”T DIGEST IT PROPERLY- YOU WILL NOT RECEIVE THE MAXIMUM BENEFITS it’s that simple.
Studies show that more than 30 percent of what we ingest never gets into our system. It passes right through us and ends up in the toilet, which is where the money you paid for it goes too.
We mention this because many times folks feel that natural remedies don’t work, the reason is you are not digesting and absorbing properly. Another factor is it takes vitamins and supplements longer to work compared to drugs.
Vitamins That Effect High Blood Pressure
Lets take a look at what effect vitamins and minerals have on high blood pressure.
Vitamin A – is a fat-soluble vitamin that, like vitamin E, works primarily in the lipid, or fat, tissues of your body. Vitamin A prevents LDL cholesterol (bad cholesterol) building up of plague in your arteries.
Vitamin C – protects your arteries and decreases the risk of heart disease and hypertension. It prevents the generation of free radicals which damage artery walls. It helps repair damage to the arteries, preventing the deposit of plaque at the site of injury. It also helps elevate levels of HDL cholesterol (good cholesterol).
Vitamin E – is the most active antioxidant in the fatty cells of your body. It reduces the risk of heart disease and hypertension by protecting your arteries from the effects of oxidized LDL cholesterol.
Potassium – even though it’s not a vitamin I include it because it’s easy to get and has an affect on high blood pressure. Bananas, potatoes and milk are good sources for getting potassium.
Magnesium – again, is not a vitamin but does benefit you and is a supplement easily found. People require between 300 and 400 milligrams of magnesium each day. Salmon, leafy green vegetables, whole grains and nuts are good sources of magnesium.
Since many people take supplements we want to look at quality, the quality of a supplement is just as important as its benefits for high blood pressure.
How to Judge a Quality Supplement
If you are under a Doctors care you should talk with him/her first before making any dietary changes, especially if you are on medications.
This also includes adding vitamins or supplements to your diet. There may be factors in your medical history, especially with high blood pressure, that could affect your health. Although vitamins have never killed anyone, you’ll still want to run it past your Doctor.
Your choice of vitamins is as large as the taxes taken from your paycheck. It’s a big business where you will find a lot of substandard products.
Two factors that affect the quality of supplements – processing techniques and fillers.
A cheap vitamin like vitamin C may claim they have 500 mg in it, but how much vitamin C really gets into your system after you break it down?
As far as processing it’s a lot faster to use heat compared to the slower and more efficient cold process. Heat destroys or as they say “Cooks Out” a percentage of a supplements potency, this reduces its benefits. The question remains, how do you know what to buy? The answer is buy what is proven to be good.
There are certain companies that are certified and adhere to a good practice seal, this is called GMP certified.
The simplest way to go about this is buying from a reputable company. Here are a few companies we consider to be high grade products:
- Roex
- Garden of Life
- Centrum Silver Brand
- Vita-Logic
- Natures Way
- Hypercet
If you want to dig a little further into this subject, then check with consumer labs.
Having confirmation from a lab that breaks down the ingredients of a supplement is another way to check the quality of vitamins. It’s unfortunate, but there are a lot of contaminated ingredients found in vitamins which do not benefit anyone.
One containment I came across was lead. This is generally not a concern with quality vitamins because they have strict quality control measures.
Now that you have another remedy to deal with high blood pressure naturally, just make sure to buy quality products and be patient using them.
If you cannot find one of the quality manufacturers locally you can definitely find them online.
Taking care of your high blood pressure condition correctly requires using quality supplements.
