How to Live Beyond Age 120 Part IV – Medical News

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By The Eismans (And we should know as we are doctors)

SALT

Salt is fine. It is a sin, by any religion to eat French fries without salt. Salt is OK (but not great) for 90% of the population. AH! But here’s the rub. What about the 10%? What we are concerned about is those that have high blood pressure.

There are two mechanisms that result in elevation of blood pressure above normal (hypertension). First, the blood vessels are too tight, and the heart needs to increase its work to squeeze blood through these narrow vessels. Many of our medications address this problem. The second mechanism is retention of water. Think of a big, tall tank. As you add water, and it begins to fill, the weight of the water is the increase in pressure. In our body, salt controls the amount of water, and volume of our blood. It is easy to understand that in an individual with hypertension, salt is poison as it raises blood volume and increases pressure.

So who belongs to the unlucky 10%? Not everybody gets their blood pressure checked. Years ago, they realized that this was a problem. So, to protect the 10% at risk, they took the salt out of baby food. After all, what was the salt for? It was to improve the taste for the mothers. The infants didn’t care a bit, and if they did not develop a liking for salt, they did not utilize salt as adults, and this protected the 10% at risk.

So, what is considered HBP? Each year, the feds have recommended lower blood pressures than the year before. Below is a table that is the present recommendation, but will be considered too high by the time you read this sentence:

SYSTOLIC DIASTOLIC
NORMAL 90 to 129 60 to 79
STAGE 1 130 to 139 80 to 89
STAGE 2 140 to 149 90 to 109
CRITICAL >180 >110

So what do the terms systolic and diastolic mean? Systolic is the peak pressure measured in the periphery such as your arm. The heart develops much higher pressure with each beat, but if your arteries are healthy, and nice and elastic, the pressure in your arm will be much lower than what the heart produces. This peak pressure measurement is the systolic. Between heart beats there is still pressure in the arteries, and this is the diastolic pressure.

COFFEE

When I was a child, back in the Cretaceous Period, I was not allowed to drink coffee as it would stunt my health. Times have changed, and one study showed that people who drink six cups a day live longer than people who drink only five cups. For this study they must have had to scrape some of the individuals off the ceiling. Okay, if six cups are good, is there a dose of coffee that we know is toxic?

Well, I have an interesting story to tell. About forty years ago, a new patient came to our office. He had a visible twitch. He stated his problem as being an annoying muscle tremor. So, when we took his history we asked him, “How many cups of coffee do you drink.” He said that he didn’t know. It took quite a bit of prodding before he admitted to drinking five to six carafes (pots) each day. We responded, “You drink five or six carafes each day and you’re asking me why you have this twitch?” So now we know that drinking fifty to sixty five cups of coffee may get you into trouble, and now we warn all our patients to keep track of the coffee, and be careful not to drink more than fifty cups each day.

We drink our coffee black. We don’t think it is much of a problem if you add a little milk or a teaspoon of sugar. When you go to an outside coffee shop, make sure you are not getting coffee loaded to the brim with cream and a few tablespoons of sugar.

Dr. Eisman is the author of Bitter Medicine. To purchase a copy, click HERE.

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