Thank you for joining me once again this evening. I hope you enjoy this podcast as much as you have enjoyed the previous ones. My name is Dr. Harrison Campbell and I work at Restoration Health a premier sugar land chiropractors office. Tonight we will be discussing blood pressure and the effects of diet, and specifically salt, on your blood pressure.
To start we will discuss blood pressure. The cardiovascular system is the system designed to pump blood through the body. This blood carries nutrients, oxygen, removes waste, transports hormones and chemicals, and helps the immune system. This system is a self contained unit meaning the adding or removing more ìstuffî into the system affects the pressure inside the system. This stuff can be something as simple as salt or fluid to something more complex like metabolic waste.
The reason this is important is as sugar land chiropractors will tell you the body operates off of gradients. Electrical gradients and fluid similarity gradients. Itís the fluid gradients which influence blood pressure. If you remember back I. School water wants to be balanced in osmolarity or particles in the fluid. This is where dat and other nutrients and minerals come into play. Having a higher percentage of particles per unit of fluid raises the osmolarity compared to surrounding tissue. Should the barrier between the cells and the bloodstream be permeable to water the side with the higher osmolarity or particles per unit of fluid will draw water into it from the surrounding tissue or cells.
This will lead to more fluid entering. The higher osmolarity zone to decrease the percentage of particles per unit of fluid as sugar land chiropractors will tell you. This is why people say not to drink sea water when thirsty. The salt water will pull water from your body making you more thirsty in the long run.
However for blood pressure this increased fluid causes and increase in blood pressure as the over all volume of fluid in the self contained cardiovascular system increases. This is why people that are suffering from cardiovascular disease at are placed on low sodium diets. Pulling more fluid into the blood stream is salt is a good way to have elevated blood pressure.
An experiment you can do is to take your blood pressure then eat a salty food like popcorn and then recheck your blood pressure. The salt from the popcorn will provide an increase in fluid volume and this increase blood pressure. Now as one of the premier sugar lands chiropractors in the area I must also say to perform this experiment with caution. If you are at risk or have cardiovascular problems do not perform this experiment. Just as do not perform this experiment with vast quantities of salt. Be mindful of what you are doing and do not risk your health just to see if the experiment will work.
Even though salt is a big culprit of elevating blood pressure this is not the only means of elevating blood pressure. The diameter or how wide the blood vessel is also plays a role in this. The process of vasoconstriction to make the blood vessel smaller and vasodilation to make the blood vessel larger will greatly affect the pressure in the cardiovascular system. As sugar land chiropractors know the smaller the vessel constricts the greater the blood pressure will be. Similar to when you have a garden hose and cover part of the model with your thumb to increase the pressure of the water coming out.
This process of changing the diameter of the blood vessel is controlled through the autonomic nervous system called sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems. The sympathetic system is the system which is commonly referred to as the fight or flight system and is in charge of helping you deal with stressful situations. The parasympathetic system is commonly referred to as the rest and digest system by all sugar land chiropractors and by all doctors in general.
Depending on which system is firing depends on which vessels are smaller or larger. During stressful situations you would not want your stomach to be digesting food or your body preparing for sleep. Thus your blood vessels in the gut are small and the blood pressure is low. Conversely during stressful situation you want your mind to be operating quickly and your extremities, meaning your arms and legs, to be primed for work. This means the blood vessels to the extremities and to the brain are large and blood flow is high.
What these systems can also mean however is stressful situations can influence your blood pressure. A common occurrence for sugar land chiropractors when checking blood pressure is a phenomenon known as white coat hypertension. This means people view having their blood pressure checks by a doctor as stressful and their blood pressure spikes while at the doctor. This can provide a false reading of high blood pressure.
The reason this is important is many people constantly place themselves under unneeded stress. This constant stress provides an increase in blood pressure which prolonged increases in blood pressure have significant impacts on your health. This is not to say to never place yourself under stress. There is health stress and unhealthy stress. We will not dive into that topic as that would require its own podcast. Simply put limit the amount unhealthy stress in your life and you will be surprised at the affect on your blood pressure. I know many people who had decreases in blood pressure and in some cases drastic decrease in blood pressure when they changed careers or retired from their jobs.
Thank you for joining me once again for these nightly podcasts. I hope you find them educational and can use these tips and this information in your daily life. As always should you or someone you know require the services of sugar land chiropractors please call Restoration Health today to schedule an appointment. Once again have a good evening and I hope to see you for our next podcast on Vitamin C. Good night.