From time to time I have posted questions on this forum and usually everyone is very knowlegable and I get some very good answers, thank you for that.

I have another question, I am now on medication for my high blood pressure and I am starting all the lifestyle changes necessary, one the things my doctor demanded was that I reduce sodium in my diet. But when all the blood test came back, the full metibolic panel, etc. he said my sodium and potassium levels were "spectacular" was the word he used.

If my sodium levels are "spectacular" then why do I have to reduce sodium in my diet?

Thanks in advance for your thoughtful replies...

Modern medicine thinks that the ingestion of sodium increases blood pressure. Have you read GCBC? He debunks that myth as well.

If you are talking about Taube's book, good carb, bad carb, or something like that, I fear I only read half the book then just got caught up in other things and have not gone back to it. Do you know what chapter it is in?

Yes, the Taubes book is the one I'm talking about. Sorry, I do not have my book handy to give you the reference.

Pages 145 through to 148,
I'm going out tonight so no chance of summarizing it now for you.

You may be interested in this post
eepobee has kindly provided some images of the relevant pages from GCBC so I don't have to make the effort. Thanks eepobee

That was a very enlightening thread indeed! But the only answer I really gleaned from that is that "the jury is still out" on why or if sodium even does anything at all. My other question that came out of that is how does one know if they are salt sensitve or carb sensitve short of experimenting on themselves?

God I love the american medical establishment! (I hope the snark was evident)

Why not just experiment? My BP dropped quickly on low carb. Doesn't take much of a test, couple of weeks. Probably same with sodium restriction too. Pretty easy to test, right?

Considering how high my blood pressure shot up (174/124), I was not wanting to "rock the boat", just in case whatever I did made it worse. I was hoping to get it to drop some before I started any experimenting.

But after all the reading around and great answers I got here I am certainly trying the low carb way first. And if that works then I will be "sold" on low carb. (I have sat on the fence on this issue for a very, very long time)

My own experience has been that neither cutting sodium, nor eating low-carb had the slightest effect on my BP. With meds, it's down to 145/80 which is still too high (but much better than the 230/105 it started at), but I can't tolerate some of the classes of meds (specifically beta blockers) so it'll have to do. Also, dropping 40+ lbs and exercising didn't seem to help any either! So much for cause & control theories!

Before starting LC I was taking 3, yes 3 different blood pressure medications. I'm now down to 1 pill daily and if it weren't for the fact that my doc is stubborn, because I had gestational diabetes with my last child, and she wants to protect my kidneys from the effects of diabetes I'd be off of it. My last BP check was 98/54!!!

BTW - I add No-salt to most of my breakfast food and my dinner food for the added potassium. So that kind of salt doesn't seem to affect my blood pressure.

I too had high blood pressure, first diagnosed when I was about 29 and only 25 lbs overweight.

Atkins has helped me get into a "healthy" blood pressure range and I was able to stop taking medicine. I sometimes wonder if the "healthy" range is really ideal, or if that is something pushed by pharmaceutical company research to sell more medicine, but that is beside the point.

I quit my medicine before low carbing, though I wouldn't necessarily recommend that. My blood pressure dropped fairly fast when I went below 20 grams of carbs per day for my 2 week induction. I sorta worried that if I did induction while taking a medicine that was designed to eliminate sodium from my body that I would really be thrown off balance electrolyte wise.

I think "Protein Power" had some good suggestions for how to approach reduction in BP medicine while low carbing, but I can't remember what was specifically said.

Hmm... can't say as I understand. Low carbing drops BP quickly for some. Some people are salt sensitive. By trying these things the potential outcome is:

Low carbing: 1) Does nothing 2) Drops your BP
Cutting back salt: 1) Does nothing 2) Drops your BP

So either one of those things is a potential win or it just won't do anything significant. It isn't going to make your kidneyz aspolde or anything like that.

My fear is that it does nothing. Which would cause damage.

But I agree it is worth a shot. I am going to do my own little experiment and see what comes of it. I have started reducing the carbs today and paying close attention to the GI rating of the carbs that I do eat.

I will post after this week what happened...it should be interesting.

Eek, Glycemic index is really crap. It's simpler and much more accurate to just take the total carbs and subtract out the fiber. Those are net carbs. Atkins diet aims for 20 net carbs during induction. If I were you, that's about what I'd aim for.

You might even want to just go on Atkins induction diet for a couple weeks. Follow the list of foods allowed, see what happens.

You might also want to try
Blood pressure lowering efficacy of coenzyme Q10 for primary hypertension.

That Cochran Review was looking at 100-120 mg coenzyme Q10 daily.
IHERB CoQ10 $5 Discount Code ~~~~~~