

High blood pressure damages brain long before old age - whoisnicole
http://www.latimes.com/health/boostershots/la-heb-blood-pressure-brain-damage-20121101,0,3791840.story
...the brain integrity of a 40-year-old with hypertension, for instance, was roughly equivalent to that of a person 7.2 years older whose systolic blood pressure reading was in the normal range.
======
omnisci
Here is a link to the actual article, sans media bs.
[http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1474442212...](http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1474442212702417)

Ps. lots of things can damage your brain long before you are old. Don't go
flipping out because of this one article.

If you are interested in learning more about disease, etc, go to
www.pubmed.com and search for info there. There you will find links to actual
studies (not from the media) and you can inform yourself. If you are
interested in a particular topic, look for review papers. NIH has mandated
that these must be available to the public (free) for at least 1 year after
publication.

Although this one article is not as bad as others, I can't stand when the
media talks about scientific experiments. "This just in, study shows that
normal drinking water will murder your whole family!!!!......[small font] if
you are a bacteria in Antarctica and it's Tuesday night following a purple
moon. [fontsize]

------
hluska
This article terrifies me....

About four years ago (when I had just turned 31), I started working at a local
startup. It was the typical startup gig with huge hours and even bigger
responsibility. Being somewhat dysfunctional, I began living the worst
possible life. I was working huge hours, so I decided that it didn't make
sense to cook. Consequently, I started eating out at least two meals a day.
And, since I was working too many hours to cook, I couldn't justify going to
the gym. Heck, why work out if you don't have enough time to cook???

Within a year, my body decided to rebel. I started getting weird symptoms - my
chest often felt hollow, I'd get weird pains across the tops of my shoulders
and through my neck, and occasionally, I would have to stop while walking up a
flight of stairs. It wasn't because I was out of breathe, rather, it was
because my head would start to spin and I was afraid that I'd fall.

Being stubborn, I put off going to the doctor. But, eventually, I started
having bigger symptoms and I had to go. My blood pressure was extremely high.
So high that my doctor took two readings, then took me into another office to
try a different machine. I'll never forget that conversation:

\- "Greg, your blood pressure is very high." \- "How high?" \- "High enough
that if you keep doing what you're doing, you will have a stroke."

Hearing the word 'stroke' when you are 32 years old is a pretty big shock to
the system. So, I made some changes. I went back to the gym. I started
cooking. I cut my salt intake drastically. Things settled down...

But, as they often do, stress started creeping back into my life and my habits
started to slip. My attendance at the gym started to drop off. My eating
habits started to slip.

Things culminated one horrifying morning, when I was sitting at my desk at
work and things went....well, uh...things went. Half of my body went totally
numb. I looked at my computer and, even though I knew it was a computer, I
could not, for the life of me, remember what the heck it was called.

There I was...33 years old and I saw a computer in front of me. I knew what it
was for. I knew what I could do with it. But I could not, for the life of me,
remember that it was called a computer. I'll never forget the sheer terror of
that moment.

My company's Biz Dev guy rushed me to the hospital, where I got to experience
a full battery of tests. Thankfully, it wasn't a stroke, but it was freakishly
close. I am a touch claustrophobic so they were afraid that a CT scan would
elevate my blood pressure, so they drugged me. The combination of extreme fear
and a heavy dose of Ativan was unlike anything I have ever experienced. When
I'm afraid of things, I like to intellectualize. I like neuroscience a whole
lot, so, until the Ativan kicked in, I was rapidly going through my symptoms
and trying to localize them to a region of my brain. Once the Ativan kicked
in, I knew that I should likely do, uh, something, but uh, yeah, oh wow, this
is, uh, pretty relaxing and.....

Long story short, I did not have a stroke. Rather, my blood pressure went
through the roof and my body decided to flip the reset button. I took blood
pressure medication for awhile and, with my doctor's help, eventually got off
of it.

Now, I live differently, but I still see my inner demon trying to make me sick
again. The old habits - working too much, exercising too little, and eating
out a little too often - still rear their head. But, this time, I know that if
I don't take care of myself, I might end up in the hospital again.

Sorry for writing so much, but I wanted to share my story. We are involved in
a very stressful industry and, though I don't know many of you, I care about
all of you. Please be healthy.

~~~
pitchups
>I took blood pressure medication for awhile and, with my doctor's help,
eventually got off of it.

Can you share how exactly you got off the blood pressure medication? I know it
is possible with appropriate diet and lifestyle changes - but would love to
hear how you did it. Specifically, how high was your blood pressure and what
changes made the most difference. I have been on daily medication for over 5
years now, and would love to try a natural drug-free approach to bringing it
back to normal.

~~~
hluska
Hey there...

First off, sorry to hear that you've been on daily medication for five years.
I'm not a doctor, but I'll tell you everything I know. As well, if you have
any questions you don't want to share here, or if you just need some support,
my email address is on my profile page.

The worst reading I ever had was 240/120, but I lived in the 200+/100+ zone
for a long time. Over my entire battle, my average would have been around
220/110...

It will likely be easier if I basically open source myself. At the time, I was
5'11 and weighed about 210 pounds. I should weigh 170. My daily regiment
looked a whole lot like this:

\- The only time I ate breakfast was when someone brought in doughnuts, at
which point, I'd usually eat at least two.

\- My caffeine consumption was extremely high. I'd have a minimum of three
500ml travel mugs every morning. 500ml equals two cups, so, that was pretty
heavy. In the afternoon, I'd usually cut back a little and only drink two
travel mugs. The fact a liter of coffee was considered cutting back is
somewhat scary to me now.

\- For lunch, I often (at least 2x per week) went to a great Thai restaurant,
where I often had Paht Thai. Sushi was another common lunch food. I was one of
those sushi eaters who downed prodigious amounts of soy sauce.

\- We normally worked until 6pm, then went out for dinner and drinks. After
dinner, I'd usually head back to work until 2am. This is when things really
hit the crapper. I had no willpower after two pints and my nights at work
usually had at least one or two convenience store breaks. Potato chips were
common snacks. When I wanted to be healthy, it was salted peanuts.

\- I'd be satisfied if I got an average of four hours of sleep a night.

\- Water? Did people drink that??

Long story short, nutritionally, I was a complete mess. That's where I did
most of my work.

\- My first step was to fix my diet. I all but stopped going out for lunch and
started making my own lunches. Breakfast became a new friend - poached eggs
are actually really good. And I started going home and cooking dinner.
Finally, I cut my salt intake dramatically.

\- Not only did I change what I ate, but I also changed the schedule. I wrote
a Chrome extension that replaced all images with cats every two hours. That
wasn't sign to go eat something and drink some water. Old me would eat two
huge meals and snack at night. New me had breakfast, a morning snack, lunch,
an afternoon snack, and a healthy dinner. Snacks were usually something like
raw asparagus, or maybe some carrots.

\- I cut my caffeine consumption dramatically. This was the hardest part of
the whole process. Turns out that caffeine is really a drug (and I'm an
addict).

\- I started drinking water. I didn't follow that eight glasses crap, but I
made a point of drinking water with every meal.

\- Exercise was huge. At first, I couldn't really exercise. Rather, I had to
spend 20 minutes on an exercise bike barely moving. The idea was to slowly
introduce myself to cardio while keeping my heart rate very low. When that
didn't kill me, I bumped it up to thirty minutes. Then, I kicked up the
intensity. After three months, my doctor authorized me to start lifting
weights. At first, I could only lift really tiny amounts of weight, though I
could do lots of reps. When that didn't kill me, I could start lifting a
little heavier (10 reps to failure). And when that didn't kill me, my doctor
finally agreed to let me lift heavy (ie - less than 5 reps to failure).

\- A few months into the process, I went through a very deep, dark bout with
depression. It was a mid 30s, I'm a complete loser, I hate my job, I hate my
life and, if I died right now, nobody would care. Sounds crappy, but it was
helpful because I got to realize that I wasn't living. I had a job. I worked
with my friends. I didn't have hobbies and had forgotten everything (and
everyone) I loved. I went through a few months of apologizing to th friends I
abandoned in favour of my gig and worked to find myself again. That's when I
realized that real life doesn't feel like a giant ball of stress. Rather,
there was thus weird state called "being content in the moment."

\- With that sudden interest in mindfulness, I started meditating. Meditating
sucked and was likely the hardest thing I ever tried. Meditating is still very
hard, but it is part of my life now.

\- Between getting back into collecting vinyl, going to punk shows, working
out and playing in a really excellent World of Darkness campaign (I never said
my interests were terribly cool), I began to see two distinct versions of
myself. There was crazy Greg, who worked all the time, had no joy and was
always stressed out. And then, there was laid back, totally chill, happy Greg.
Joy is, I'm both of those people and am in control of which persona I choose
to wear around. It sounds like crap, but I decided that I wanted to be happy.
I can't tell you how critical that was in my recovery - learning that stress
happens (and that I can deal with the stressor and then be fine) was amazing.
I realize that I was in the habit of feeling stressed. I made a new habit.

I'm not sure this is going to be helpful. I can't point to one particular
thing that helped because I changed many different things. One thing though,
changing my mind helped me so much. Becoming mindful of stress, learning to
recognize it, and then using things like exercise, meditation, or a really
kickass Werewolf to put it someplace helpful was amazingly beneficial.

On a pure, statistical level, my body is dramatically different today. When I
started lifting weights, my max bench press was 1/4 what it is today. As far
as lower body goes, my squat has increased 5 times since I started. When I
started exercising, I couldn't run one kilometer without stopping; today, I
routinely run 8km. While my raw measurements haven't really changed (I'm 5'11
and 195 now), my body is different. You won't get me and Arnold Schwarzenegger
mixed up, but four year olds don't beat me in arm wrestles anymore....

However, I also seriously owe my doctor. Seriously, the man went way beyond
the call of duty. He could have easily kept me on meds forever. Rather, he
knew I wanted to be natural and worked hard to get me there. He put me on a
very harsh regiment, where I had to check to check in with him once a month.
He monitored me constantly and that is the biggest factor in how I got off the
meds.

Seriously, I hope this helps and please feel free to email me!

~~~
whoisnicole
Hi Greg, thanks for sharing your story. It's great to hear that you're staying
very healthy now.

To all other friends here, I'm sure most of you have read the recent article
by Jessica Livingston, What Goes Wrong. In the article, she said, "We tell
people that during YC there are really only three things you should focus on:
building things, talking to users, and exercising." Over the past year, I've
been doing exactly the three things, and I'm feeling healthy in spite of the
long hours, and crazy schedule.

Take care of yourself, everyone. So often we hear people say that doing a
startup is a marathon, not a sprint. We really need it take it to heart.

------
tptacek
I would like a credible dismissive comment to be at the top of this thread now
please, because otherwise this is very bad news.

~~~
a_bonobo
Best medical journal (Lancet), proper sample-size (579), from first glance it
looks OK!

From their discussion there are some caveats:

\- mostly white people checked (so if you're Asian, this might not happen)

\- MRI has a known bias towards participation of healthy people, as unhealthy
people don't like to hear the "news" about their condition

\- the study is "cross-sectional", i.e., the MRI is just from one point in
time. Having several measurements from the same people over a period of time
(in years) would be much, much better.

Here's the original paper in case anyone's got access:
[https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S147444221...](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1474442212702417)

P.S.: To lift your mood, the first comment in the news-article is hilarious:
"now the government obama care will start to penalize people with high blood
pressure? absurd, they just need more cash."

------
jacques_chester
Hey guys,

before we post the same link to "The Best Gym for Startups: Crossfit" two
dozen times, let's reflect that Crossfit has a number of issues -- completely
absent quality control being chief, with poor exercise selection logic being a
close second.

Let me put it this way: injuries per kilowatt-hour.

Kettlebell swings, prowler pushes, etc -- good!

High rep Oly lifting, high rep box jumps, kipping pullups -- terrible!

Crossfit does not distinguish between these exercise selection options.

~~~
srlake
You clearly haven't tried crossfit for very long, or went to a shitty box.

~~~
jacques_chester
Like I said: there is no quality control.

~~~
srlake
There is no quality control at regular, commercial gyms either.

I used to work out at a popular commercial gym and would see trainers doing
the most ridiculous things with their clients: swimmers press on a bosu ball
for a average 45 year old non-athlete, all kinds of pointless machine
circuits.

Coming from a competitive sports background and year of training, my injury
rate has actually gone down after joining crossfit, mostly due to the balance
it builds by the variety of movements.

~~~
jacques_chester
> I used to work out at a popular commercial gym and would see trainers doing
> the most ridiculous things with their clients: swimmers press on a bosu ball
> for a average 45 year old non-athlete, all kinds of pointless machine
> circuits.

Which brings us neatly to my second point, which was injuries/Kwh.

Most commercial gyms don't perform exercise selection; it's done by trainers
who generally focus on stuff that seems difficult and exotic because that's
what brings in the business. The gyms themselves select insurance-friendly
machinery.

While Crossfit gets people up off their backsides to do actual work, there's a
lot of flat out stupidity mixed in with the legit stuff.

High rep Oly movements? Dumb.

High rep box jumps? Dumb.

Kipping pullups? Let's not go into that here.

Mix in the fact that a bosu ball pushup, while stupid, is less likely to cause
a bulged disc than say deadlifting 65% of your DL 1RM for max reps; and
suddenly we again find the quality control thing swinging back into central
view.

~~~
srlake
I'm not sure what kind of training background you come from, but many of the
exercises you mentioned are core parts of training programs for competitive
athletes in a number of sports.

High rep oly movements = dumb? In what situation? With what intended training
effect?

Rep/weight schemes, in a periodized training program for an athlete are set to
achieve a specific training goals. In one phase of the program that may be
power endurance, for example. In a training program for competitive rowers
high rep (30+) sets of power cleans at a low weight may be used to build power
endurance.

Deadlifting 65% of 1RM for max reps is another very common exercise
prescription for athletes building power endurance. If the exercise is stopped
when form breaks down, I see nothing wrong here. 65% is a relatively light
load. If you have a decent deadlift it's only about 300 lbs or so - a good
athlete will have no trouble keep form for sets of 10+. The desired training
effect of a high rep 65% effort is much different than a 85-100% max strength
effort, or even a 65% low rep, speed focus.

High rep box jumps, for untrained individuals = a bad idea. If you've built up
to it and have no achilles issues, this is not a concern.

~~~
jacques_chester
My background is as an Olympic-style weightlifter. I'm a licensed sports power
coach under the Australian Weightlifting Federation.

> High rep oly movements = dumb? In what situation?

In _all_ situations. This is _never_ a good idea. _Ever_.

> With what intended training effect?

If it's to improve technique, do more sets. If it's to improve cardiovascular
conditioning, _do something else_.

> a periodized training program

Oh, you mean the kind of "voodoo science" that Crossfit HQ specificially
eschews and that every top level Crossfit Games competitor nevertheless
follows?

> If the exercise is stopped when form breaks down, I see nothing wrong here.

I'll say it again: quality control and exercise selection.

> If you've built up to it and have no achilles issues, this is not a concern.

And yet I see middle-aged housewives doing AMRAPs on box jumps.

And it's not just repetitive strain injuries. Misjudge the jump (because, I
dunno, _you're really tired from high rep box jumping_ ), land on toes, fall
down, _snap_.

A lot of Crossfit is fine. The problems _still remain_ that quality control is
_explicitly non-existent_ and that exercise selection is hit-and-miss with a
genuine fondness for stupid ideas.

Basically, no good and safe Crossfit gym has any resemblance to Crossfit HQ's
vision except to pay a licensing fee to use the trademark.

------
frankus
It would be interesting news if intervening with blood-pressure-lowering drugs
led to a reduction in brain aging against a control group.

For now it's just an interesting correlation, and it's kind of disappointing
to see the Heart Association making recommendations based on it, particularly
since the evidence for the benefits of reducing salt intake is so weak.

------
danjaouen
Reading this article has significantly raised my blood pressure.

~~~
barking
Someone should do a study on the impact on peoples' health of the epidemic of
media reporting of medical studies

~~~
spydum
Good luck finding a suitable control group

------
revelation
My body likes to shoot up my blood pressure far off the charts whenever
someone tries to measure it. Of course, the pattern only grows stronger from
these experiences.

~~~
jrockway
True of everyone, it's called white coat hypertension:

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_coat_hypertension>

After my doctor noticed high-ish blood pressure, I bought a meter and started
measuring at home. Always below 120/80, sometimes below 110/75. I brought the
same meter to the doctor's office and measured 135/85.

Strange, isn't it?

~~~
michael_michael
Not true of _everyone_, but definitely true of some (including me).
Additionally, white coat hypertension is not entirely benign. From the
wikipedia article you link:

"In general, individuals with white coat hypertension have lower morbidity
than patients with sustained hypertension, but higher morbidity than the
clinically normotensive."

~~~
jrockway
_In general, individuals with white coat hypertension have lower morbidity
than patients with sustained hypertension, but higher morbidity than the
clinically normotensive._

There goes my plan to live forever. Foiled again!

------
kayoone
I am 29 and suffered from high blood pressure. I am not particulary overweight
but not super lean either. For the past 3 years i have worked at a startup
that i founded as a CEO and programmer. Ultimately we failed but it still was
a superb experience but the long hours and high stress also had alot of
negative impacts on my life.

I got high blood pressure without noticing it, i gained about 10kg in weight,
lost a long term (8 years) relationship and always felt stressed and guilty of
not doing enough. In the end the product didnt find success and i realized
that even if i love my work and love to work hard, i dont want to sacrifice my
health and life as a yound adult. Now i go to the gym 4-5 times a week and try
to maintain some balance while still working hard and most importantly more
efficient. Even in 8 hours of highly focused work you will get alot more done
than in grinding it out for 12 hours each day, and with regular exercise you
will feel much better and be healthier! I love working out, not only is my
blood pressure in excellent condition again and i feel fitter than ever, but
it also gives me something else than my coding work to excel at, which is very
important to me.

This is just my experience and YMMV, but i learned it the hard way. Think of
your health and happiness first!

------
wiggins37
I hope that somebody reads this and sits down in the automatic BP machine at
the drug store. Current recommendations are for everyone to have their BP
checked every two years even if they have never had hypertension. Besides
neurological damage you could be saving yourself a lot of grief with heart
disease and kidney disease in the long term if you get your blood pressure
under control early. Especially if your parents have or had high blood
pressure, please get your's checked.

------
marze
It would be more accurate to say: High blood pressure may damage the brain,
or, the factors that cause high blood pressure also damage the brain.

Correlation does not imply causation.

------
niels_olson
you know, here's a weird question: is there a market for a start-up-centric
physician? I'm seeing a focus on depression and nutrition. Thoughts? How would
one measure the cost-benefit? Let's say I want a house in the valley? How does
one work backward from there? Has anyone visited a doctor literally lived
above his clinic? The primary care side of HN actually fascinates me a little.
But, wow, that would be a big, scary jump.

------
givan
What do you think of the <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elliptical_trainer> to
stay fit and avoid this thing of problems?

I don't like losing time going to the gym and this machine seems to train a
large number of muscle groups and could be a good gym substitute to maintain
health.

~~~
Lost_BiomedE
If only one machine were to be picked, I would go rower.

------
pud
There's an awkwardly worded survey question at the top of that article:

"Do you know if your blood pressure is in the normal range?"

It could mean "Do you have normal blood pressure?" or "Do you know your blood
pressure?"

I think grammatically it means the latter, but my guess is most people are
reading it as the former. I'm not sure which one the author intended.

------
srlake
+1 for exercise and healthy eating.

One of the many reasons we pay for our employees gym memberships.

If you really want to get in shape and turn your health around, find your
local Crossfit (www.crossfit.com) gym and get hooked.

~~~
rhokstar
Definitely.

6 days a week, 2 hours a day.

~~~
tomjen3
Okay. If that is what it takes, count me out. That is an insane amount of time
to spend doing something that we as a species have worked so hard to overcome
the need for.

~~~
srlake
This comment is the problem with North America's health today.

------
rhokstar
[http://techcrunch.com/2012/07/30/the-best-gym-for-
startups-c...](http://techcrunch.com/2012/07/30/the-best-gym-for-startups-
crossfit/)

------
cypher517
I wonder how factors associated with high blood pressure, such as diet and
exercise, also contribute to the damages on the brain.

~~~
hluska
Great question!

As far as diet and exercise go, researchers from UCLA conducted an experiment.
They found that (in mice) a high fat diet reduces the level of brain derived
neurotrophic factors. These levels are a predictor of how well you will learn.
However, exercise can counteract these effects.

Dehydration causes a range of neurological problems. Essentially, if you don't
have enough water to cleanse your system, your body starts using amino acids.
These amino acids would normally be used up building neurotransmitters, so,
this can cause all sorts of problems, from what resembles ADHD, to depression,
or even conditions that look like autoimmune disorders.

------
tocomment
Has anyone tried garlic to help with blood pressure? It seems there's good
evidence for it.

~~~
Lost_BiomedE
Aged garlic took mine down. I don't have hypertension so I got off of it; my
BP returned to my normal. The studies are actually kind of hit and miss, but
it worked for me as a normie.

Another one to look at is pomegranate. A friend of mine was having side
effects with his BP medicine, and I made the suggestion to try it, LEF brand
pills or POM juice. He was able to get off, had same BP as when on meds,
without side effects. There are lots of studies to look at on this on at
pubmed, essentially a beta-blocker with some other actions.

Lastly, most people are deficient in potassium. Get some potassium glutamate
powder to supplement (not pills as they are regulated to be under 100mg). RDA
is 5g, and most people are under 2g a day intake. I have taken 500mg worth of
potassium, daily in water, for years without issue.

~~~
tocomment
Is there a certain product you buy for the garlic? What dosage?

~~~
Lost_BiomedE
It was Kyolic 100. I was taking one a day but the bottle says 2.

~~~
tocomment
Hmm, I was reading that the aging process makes it lose the active ingredient?
But it still seemed to work really well for you?

~~~
Lost_BiomedE
It loses some actives and gains as well as intensifies others. The studies are
not consistent for its ability for dropping BP. For whatever reason, I see a
drop when using it and a rise to normal when not (did this twice before
isolating it as the cause, for me).

If I was looking for supplements for BP, based on research, I would go with
pomegranate or potassium.

------
ExpiredLink
118:78 right now.

