Home management of hypertension and metabolic conditions: the vital link in CVD prevention
Remote Patient Monitoring services allow patients to keep track of their own blood pressure, glucose and weight fluctuations at home, increasing adherence to dietary and lifestyle modifications
Written by Ursula Avella
The best and most effective way to manage risks for cardiovascular complications is an upstream approach entailing dietary modifications, weight management, regular exercise and an all-around healthy lifestyle that includes stress reduction, smoking cessation and minimal or no alcohol consumption. The truth is, however, that for an overwhelming majority of people living in the US, adopting a healthier lifestyle may come with some challenges stemming from habits learned early on from their parents, current living conditions, old age, lack of proper information, addictions and, even among the younger and more health-conscious, poorly managed stress. Paradoxically, in spite of worldwide medical advances in terms of diagnostics and pharmacological therapies, hypertension, with its related pathologies, is still the number one cause of premature death globally, which is an all too clear indication that this disorder is still somehow inadequately addressed. Its two main related metabolic dysfunctions, diabetes and obesity, are still ranking high on the list of associated risk factors for mortality. Unequivocally, the missing link in this discrepancy between medical eminence and telltale statistics is management of these conditions in the home setting, particularly as it pertains to the elimination of sugars and processed foods from the diet, and the day-to-day awareness of dangerous shifts in values.
Keeping tabs on blood pressure changes and glucose spikes daily may save your life
Artery blockage and high blood pressure are best explained by analogy: picture a tube of toothpaste that has so much dried up caking from being left uncapped that it gets progressively harder to squeeze enough paste out in one single try to brush your teeth. That is basically what happens inside your arteries: the heart has to work harder and harder to pump blood, in an effort to outmatch the resistance of blockage that forms in the lining of the arteries, which is due to inflammation and oxidation. Eventually, not enough blood passes through to reach all the organs and tissues in the body, causing a heart attack or stroke.
A compensatory mechanism also takes place in metabolic syndrome and Type II diabetes. These conditions are in fact marked by the inability of insulin to get into cells and usher in glucose for everyday energy, due to the cell receptors becoming callous and unresponsive (insulin resistance), as a consequence of hyperinsulinemia, which is prolonged and constant insulin flooding (the pancreatic compensatory effort to lower blood glucose). The glucose is hence free to circulate in the bloodstream, causing damages to tissues and organs. In abdominally obese individuals, the danger of cardiovascular events is exponentially higher, due to accumulation of metabolically active fat around central organs.
Dietary sugars, not fats and cholesterol, are the root cause of atherosclerosis and metabolic dysfunctions. The dangers of sugar in the human body, with relation to cardiovascular dysfunctions and chronic disease in general, are best understood by observing the so-called Maillard reaction, which is what happens when protein is cooked: at high temperatures, the sugars naturally present in meat or any other protein food visibly caramelize its protein component, making it crusty and unyielding. That same process happens overtime in human protein tissues by the hand of sugar, particularly fructose. Constant exposure to sugars, at baseline body temperature, causes hardening of the tissues, cell death and structural damage to proteins in the body, including lipoproteins that carry cholesterol: without that damage, cholesterol is actually a beneficial compound, essential to life and well-being. Structural protein glycation leads to premature aging, cataracts, inflammatory conditions, arterial plaque, diabetic neuropathy and tissue necrosis, to name a few.
Sadly, the dietary guidelines we have been given as a nation to ward off diabetes and hypertension are compiled into outdated governmental briefings such as the 1977 ‘Dietary Goals’ for Americans, which wrongfully bashed natural fats in favor of sugar (hence the ensuing mendacious propaganda for industrial seed oils and low-fat processed foods), and the DASH diet (Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension), that was proposed in the 1990s, which indicted sodium as a nutrition scourge in and of itself. Over the course of the last 30+ years, statistics have informed the lack of validity of corporation and government-funded scientific studies: the death rate from cardiovascular events related to hypertension have risen at an alarming rate to millions of fatalities worldwide.
The nutritional benchmarks for cardiovascular health have changed to reflect a more defensive approach, since, as it is evident all around us, we are still being bombarded by processed food propaganda: the enemy is among us, and it’s not going away anytime soon. As I previously alluded to, difficulties in adhering to a specific dietary regimen are to a great extent of anthropological nature, specifically as it pertains to cultural and environmental systems that inform groups and communities. Factors like geographical areas, ethnic backgrounds, economic status, misguided perceptions about what is healthy and what is not (courtesy of greedy multinational-funded propaganda), and lack of basic dietary hygiene education, all play a role in the degree of adaptation and adherence to a preventive dietary regime. Largely speaking, as it were, a typical modern North American diet is high in processed foods, hence fructose, pro-inflammatory trans fats, high glycemic load carbohydrates, low-quality protein and countless artificial additives. This unhealthy diet, combined with scarce training in nutrition among conventional medicine professionals, is regarded as a significant setback in tackling these diseases.
When coupled with a basic interventional nutrition design, a system of tracking that fosters control over one’s own health parameters is shown to make a dramatic difference in managing cardiovascular health in the home setting. Recent developments in real time tracking of blood pressure, glucose and weight make it possible for individuals affected by or at risk for metabolic dysfunctions and cardiovascular disease to save their own lives and increase the quality of living. There is no shortage of user-friendly tools that allow for immediate measurements of such conditions, with some being more accurate than others: blood pressure monitors, glucose monitors, CGMs (continuous glucose monitors) and sophisticated scales.
Remote monitoring of patients is a life-changing feedback system for both patients and doctors. In our experience as both health practitioners and nutrition counselors, being aware of fluctuations with daily frequency seems to prompt patients to actively self-manage their conditions by seeking ways other than medications to see those values go down on their monitors.
_______________________________________________________________________________________________
For more information on Remote Patient Monitoring services and how to request monitors through your physicians, please visit www.greathealthdesigns.com
Sources:
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31314689/
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/25768664/
https://www.greathealthdesigns.com/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8413119/