Not really, it was usually hovering right around the border of what's considered high blood pressure. As you might guess, the daytime numbers were off the charts compared to that. Luckily my body responds very well to the medication and a small dose is all I need to stay in a good range the whole day.
Yes, it indicates good health. Flexible arteries are healthy arteries. If you have high BP at night when sleeping that is very unhealthy. I urge anyone who has high blood pressure readings to get a 24 hour BP monitor to rule out labile hypertension.
I have labile hypertension so my BP readings are whack. It is usually up at 160/100 at the doctors office but at home it is normal. Docs did not believe me and were trying to force me onto meds till they put a 24 hour monitor on me. BP spikes and drops during the day and drops to 100/60 at night.
Labile hypertension is the most difficult to treat. So far my heart is perfect for a late 50's dude. Just had an colorflow echocardiogram, no sign of hypertension in the heart. Probably because I eat so much fish.
If I drink coffee my BP is up all day though. I am just very sensitive.
Funny I had a similar experience, late twenties, felt completely healthy, but was constantly having chest pains. I was a bit over weight at the time but I walked everywhere and was really active, doctors office my BP was always ~ 140/80, he prescribed me meds but I wasn't satisfied with that. I went and got a full heart study done and a 24hr blood pressure monitoring done, my heart and BP are totally fine apparently.
I really freak out about getting my blood pressure taken in a clinical setting, it's really unusual.
I had some treatment for a kidney stone recently, and after the procedure they were checking me with some pretty accurate machines, like 10 times in 24 hours (apparently), 128/80, for some reason in that specific setting I didn't freak out.
I have frequent chest pains as well since my early 20s! They tell me it is costochondritis but my inflammatory markers are always exceptional. I know what it is now and it is totally neurological, both issues.
Wonder if you have noticed if you were neurologically sensitive to any types of foods?
Eventually they subsided, I don't even remember when, and I've never really had them since...unless I have reflux, which does happen for me occasionally.
I'm learning I just can't really do coffee / caffeine though, I don't think it's ever really been good for me, it causes reflux and anxiety for me, but I just loved coffee to much. I gave up recently however!
The immune systems does nothing by accident. The immune system is always trying to keep the microbiome in balance and the microbiome helps the immune system as well.
> in terms of connecting specific diseases to oxidative stress, it seems like the research community has largely moved on.
As someone who knows someone at UNC Chapel Hill who was researching this starting about 15 years ago, the research community did not move on, the news just stopped talking/hyping about it.
Here is a recent paper:
Oxidative stress: The core pathogenesis and mechanism of Alzheimer's disease
It is fundamentally true that oxidative balance is crucial to health, and that nutrients play a large role in maintaining that balance; Manganese (SOD2) zinc/copper (SOD1/SOD3), Selenium/Riboflavin/Pyridoxine (Glutathione).
Deficiencies will not cause one disease, but many different ones, depending on the persons risk.
I think oxidative balance plays a large role in controlling the microbiome.
Nutrition, oxidative stress and intestinal dysbiosis: Influence of diet on gut microbiota in inflammatory bowel diseases
I have a genetic partial immunodeficiency (PNP Deficiency) and I constantly get fungal infections. Living in warm, humid climates is a challenge for me.
Reading just the beginning of that article "she experienced chronic pain, digestive problems and a cardiac arrhythmia", well, that is my life. I constantly have minor aspergillosis, and I have some lung nodules from some past fungal infections as well.
Keeping the microbiome under control is all about a healthy immune system.
But since my disorder affected my mental state they just labeled me as a psychiatric case and did not look any further, If anyone here is a doctor, please do not give up on psychiatric patients. Thanks.
Interesting case here:
Aspergillosis of the central nervous system in a previously healthy patient that simulated Creutzfeldt–Jakob disease
"He was admitted to the hospital with an occipital headache which he had endured for 2 months. For over 1 and a half months, he had also experienced behavioral disorders and a disruption of higher mental functions. He had retrograde and anterograde amnesia with both echolalia and the presence of visual hallucinations. "
Reminds me a bit of myself. After 2 COVID infections and 3 vaccines, I began experiencing digestive problems, sleep disturbance, fatigue and severe brain fog. I also was often dismissed by the doctors as simply being depressed. But I now know that I have long COVID. The fight against it is still ongoing and you can read about my struggle with it here: https://tunn3l.pro.
I'm currently working with my girlfriend on a sticker campaign to educate people on these illnesses (esp. me/cfs) in order to remove the Stigmatisation that many patients with similar symptoms expierience.
So, something is weird here, just want to invade this thread and ask HN if there should be a change.
I literally have no idea why someone would downvote this comment. But someone did. This does not bother my ego, it bothers my sensibilities.
So, maybe we should not allow downvotes unless someone comments on why they thing the comment is negative. No need to do this for upvotes because there is no need to comment on things you agree with.
Downvoting without commenting leads to suppression without justification which can be bias or outright manipulation.
I think sometimes these are accidental. When using HN on mobile, the up/down widget is so tiny that it's very easy to hit down when you mean to hit up.
From my experience with making comments connecting guy problems to other illnesses, I think the issue is HN hates anecdotal reports and especially when it contradicts "science".
I put that in quotes because we barely study the microbiome as the root cause for many issues (incredibly difficult to isolate variables) and there's constantly reports of academic malfeasance. As time goes on we also see the microbiome is responsible in things like Alzheimer's and Parkinson's. But after every new discovery if you try to insinuate there's others, people will say "no no, it's just there's nothing else has to do with that"... intil the next discovery that was only found because they decided to actually invest money into researching it.
You have a point, but often it seems that if a comment got a downvote because some rando took exception to it without a good reason; then the crowd will vote it back up fairly soon. And indeed, your comment is not grey at the time of writing. I personally am not a very consistent upvoter unless either a) the comment was amazing or b) it looks unfairly downvoted.
Ha! Thanks! Nice! So I want to add as well, why just can I not down vote someone who makes a comment under mine but I can still up vote them? Why does my down vote not count when in this case?
To me it seems to make HN favor bias instead of new ideas (which may be right or wrong, but without
And on your "had a life expectancy of about 45 years", you have a math problem. The average life span was closer to 25 years but was dragged down but the huge amount of infant mortality which is normal in humans.
The Tsimané of the Amazon are know to live well into their 70s.
> The Tsimané of the Amazon are know to live well into their 70s.
Some of them do, but those are filtered to the most healthy if the lot. It's not really surprising that if you lose the sickly ones while they're infants the ones who make it to adulthood are less likely to get sick.
This is further confounded when you have generations that have lived longer, as we do in the first world, because now not only do the sickly ones live long enough to get modern diseases, they also live long enough to reproduce and pass on the previously-non-viable genes. So generation after generation gets added that would never have survived without modern medicine.
I consider it to be a good thing that we can optimize our evolution for different traits now besides raw survivability, but it does mean that we should expect our disease numbers to be higher.
My point was that when someone says the "life expectancy is 45" that does not mean that everyone dies at 45.
> I consider it to be a good thing that we can optimize our evolution
We cannot "optimize" our evolution for different traits. Evolution is optimization to the environment. We cannot use human thought to optimize evolution, and that is eugenics anyway so no thanks.
The whole Blue Zone thing cracks me up. They think everyone will live longer on a plant based diet? Tell that to the Inuit and Sami who have genetically adapted after generations of eating very few, if any, plants.
If they Blue Zones do exists, they exist because people are eating their traditional genetic diet.
And if they eat plants, what plants? Should someone of Irish decent eat wheat even though they are more likely to have Celiac?
I have Sami heritage. I was also a Vegan at one time. A healthy Vegan. The plant based diet was literally killing me with hyperglycemia and immune issues. These people who think there is one true diet are dangerous adn do not know the first thing about nutritional genetics.
Right, the hype is nuts. My read is regardless of the flaws in demographic data, one observation does seem told hold up: if you go somewhere that's been slower to adapt modernity, and introduce western levels of inactivity and hyperprocessed food, you get all the same maladies.
Which I think is a good sign? It suggests you don't need island magic, you don't need to settle these purist debates or figure out The Answer™. The only thing that matters is addressing the two really bad things that are obviously pathogenic.
And then we can argue about moderate drinking until the end of time.
For all the nutrition wars raging these days about plant based vs animal etc I really agree with you. Modern transportation of the industrial age shuffled humans around the globe everywhere. Prior to this distinct groups were adapting in distinct biomes for thousands upon thousands of generations. Some were pure carnivore, some were high carb almost all plants, some in between.
If you search for a nutritional genomics, I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised. There are plenty of researchers who are trying to do the hard work or telling people how important genetics is to our personalized health. The University of North Carolina at Kannapolis has a very good program.
Thanks, I wouldnt really know where to begin but Im more and more interested after spending hours and hours watching both camps on youtube for awhile. Id also think maybe reading anthropology too
>These people who think there is one true diet are dangerous
In my observation (after examining anecdotes, and accounting for flawed anecdotes) everyone without exception does well on an animal based diet. It's when it comes to plants there are enormous variations.
reply