(Science Daily) — More and more, patients show up to appointments with hypertension expert John Bisognano, M.D., Ph.D. carrying bags full of “natural” products that they hope will help lower their blood pressure. And like most physicians, Bisognano doesn’t always know if these products will do any good, or if they will cause any harm.
“Right now we’re seeing a cultural shift where an increasing number of people want to avoid standard pharmaceuticals,” said Bisognano, professor of Medicine and director of Outpatient Cardiology at the University of Rochester Medical Center. “We’re also seeing a growing number of patients who require a large number of drugs to control their blood pressure and are looking for something else to help manage it.”
In an effort to better educate health care professionals and patients, Bisognano and Kevin Woolf, M.D., a cardiology fellow at the Medical Center, conducted the most comprehensive review to date of the evidence behind a wide range of non-drug interventions for the treatment of high blood pressure. The review is featured in the September issue of the Journal of Clinical Hypertension.
Woolf said there is not enough data to recommend any of these alternative options on a routine basis, but on an individual basis he thinks they are useful. “Patients have different backgrounds and different approaches to living their lives,” said Woolf. “This is where the art of medicine comes in; getting to know patients and what they will and will not embrace can help physicians identify different therapies that suit their patients’ habits and that will hopefully make a difference for them.”
Woolf and Bisognano, who is a member of the editorial board of the Journal of Clinical Hypertension, emphasize that all patients with hypertension should adhere to the low-salt DASH diet, which is high in fiber, low in fats and incorporates lots of fruits and vegetables, and follow an exercise and weight loss regimen — lifestyle modifications recommended by the American Heart Association. Any alternative options should be considered for use in addition to these lifestyle changes.
When it comes to safety, Bisognano adds, “These alternative options are usually harmless, except when they keep patients from taking medications they need to take. If a patient is taking a supplement instead of something that we know is useful, that could be a problem.”
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I really appreciate this article in that someone (Bisognano and Kevin Woolf, M.D.) who has medical backgrounds in the traditional western medicine has and is looking at alternative ways of addressing High Blood Pressure. I hope they can influence other peers to take a long hard look at what can be done with out going the drug route first.
“Woolf said there is not enough data to recommend any of these alternative options on a routine basis..”
Of course there is not enough data. The research data is funded by big pharma and is normally slanted in their favor. No one is going to research something that is not only going to not make them money but might also cause them to lose money.
There is no real money in natual solutions like garlic, fish oil, hawthorn etc so there will never been any “data” on these types of treatments.
It’s beyond high time that the medical “profession” looked at the many, effective natural ways to maintain normal blood pressure. The problem is, who is going to teach them anything, since most know everything already!?!
The suggestion that “they probably aren’t harmful unless they prevent people from taking drugs that are ‘useful'” again belies the bias. They still prefer feeding patients toxic, harmful drugs to the superior natural alternatives…………
The old truism still applies! “Follow the money!”
There is another very important point no one has touched on….malpractice insurance. Even though I am a firm believer in alternate therapies, an MD is strictly limited as to following to the “t” what they can prescibe as outlined specifically in the Physicians Desk Reference. To put it bluntly…”if it ain’t in that book…they ain’t even going to mention it”….because as, if, and when something were to happen to the patient, the widow or widower will be at the doc’s door with a malpractice attorney by their side to start a hefty law-suit. No doctor (or anyone else) is going to jeopardize their plush home(s), Mercedes, vacations, etc., to go down the alternative path wityh that kind of exposure. To eliminate this, the medical profession has to ACCEPT very specific facts about many supplements so they CAN include them in the PDR. Then all systems will be “go.” Tom
“Right now we’re seeing a cultural shift where an increasing number of people want to avoid standard pharmaceuticals,”
“A cultural shift…” May be it is not a “cultural shift.” May be these are the people who are thoroughly fed up with the unpleasant side-effects of the large number of drugs they have to take in order to control their blood pressure and hope alternative medications have less or nil side-effects.
I agree with Tom that when something happens, i.e. a person dies as a result of wrong treatment somebody may sue the practitioner. At the same time there are many people who are quite ill from pharmaceutical drugs but would never consider suing a doctor for the debilitating side-effects they are suffering from pharmaceuticals, because pharmaceuticals went through long-term trials (i.e. several months, sometimes a couple of years) before they are released.
I have suffered headaches from alternative medication and the physician said: “Don’t take it anymore!”
When I suffered headaches from a prescription medication the physician said: “Just take paracetamol as needed, but continue with the prescription.” So, instead of just one prescription pill I took additional headache pills, just about daily. Headache pills as many as I wanted from the supermarket, the prescription pills from the pharmacy.
For many kinds of health imbalances there are good natural therapies to get rid of many of them and help people recover health without need of any further medication. Just to mention a few of these cases,I can mention lots of people who have followed medical treatment without recovering their health for many years, who have at last found a real cure with natural therapies in cases of sinusitis, rhinitis, asma, vertigo, migraine, etc.