This article was originally published on the Marijuana Patients Organization site on July 17, 2011.
The leading cause of death in men AND women is not cancer, it is cardiovascular disease. And the main contributor to heart disease is your blood pressure. Before I go into the “why’s” let me make this blanket statement. Along with controlling your blood sugar (and insulin levels) the most important thing you can do to lower your risk of having a heart attack, stroke or kidney disease is to keep your blood pressure in the normal range.
High blood pressure is called the “silent killer“. You feel fine, you look fine, you do not feel ill, but your cardiovascular system is sick. Your heart is working extra hard to pump blood and oxygen throughout your body because of the increased resistance in your blood vessels. The analogy I often make to my patients is: “It’s like you are driving down the freeway at 75 mph in 3rd gear. You are moving but your engine is working way to hard. If you don’t put it in 5th it is going to fail much sooner than normal.” So if your heart is pumping against a pressure of 159/95 it is working extra hard and you need to take the strain off of it by lowering it to 120/80.
Your heart is a muscle and requires oxygen to survive. Because it’s a muscle the harder it has to work the larger it gets. Unlike big biceps, you do not want an enlarged heart. It doesn’t pump as efficiently and ultimately this leads to congestive heart failure. More importantly, along the way to an enlarged heart you are increasing your risk of HEART ATTACK, STROKE and KIDNEY DISEASE. All three of these things are very bad. 50% of people find out they have heart disease when the die of a heart attack. Many stroke victims end up having a caregiver taking care of the day to day things that you can no longer perform (i.e feed yourself or wipe your butt). Lastly, having high blood pressure ultimately causes your kidneys to shut down. I have seen many patients in their 30′s who are on dialysis because they ignored their blood pressure.
So what is the cause? 90% of high blood pressure is considered “essential” or genetic. However certainly poor lifestyle habits are the root cause (although there are very healthy people who develop high blood pressure solely because they have bad genes) . There are many secondary causes of high blood pressure and your doctor should be able to rule most of those out with some simple tests and a good history.
To treat or not to treat? In medicine you always want to weigh the risks vs benefits in anything you do. Blood pressure medication, for the most part, is very benign and well tolerated. YOU ARE MUCH BETTER OFF TAKING A SIMPLE PILL AND HAVING NORMAL BLOOD PRESSURE THAN WALKING AROUND WITH HYPERTENSION. The risk of heart disease, stroke and kidney disease is too great.
I understand that most people HATE taking medication. I am one of those people. However until you can get your blood pressure under control it is IDIOTIC not to take a simple medication until you can. Even if you have to stay on blood pressure medication your whole life, so what! No one gets through life disease free. BP meds are NOT going to kill you or alter your quality of life. Think of them as a life saver and thank God someone developed it.
So what about medical marijuana and high blood pressure. There are NOT a lot of controlled studies looking at a direct correlation. In practice I have not seen marijuana lower blood pressure to where patients can stop taking medications. However, things like stress, lack of sleep and chronic pain can all directly increase your blood pressure. Medical marijuana can help all three of these and theoretically lower your blood pressure. This is a case by case basis and I can not make any blanket statements about your specific situation.
Blood pressure is something that needs to be tackled from many angles; meal planning, stress reduction, pharmaceuticals/medically and spiritually. All of these in combination can lead you back to a path of health. Looking at any one of these alone without addressing the other is going to be futile.