Tips on lowering cholesterol and maintaining healthy blood pressure?

There’s no big secret.

The standard advice is to keep your weight reasonable, exercise regularly, and eat more plants, fruits, nuts, seeds and complex carbs. If you can give up all animal protein, that would help your cholesterol numbers also. 155–160/ 80–85 is high for a guy your age.

Smoking is such a bad idea that I won’t even mention it.

Using meditation and breathing for stress reduction is also useful.

@gailcalled I know it’s pretty darn high! My 23 year old friend had a 170/80ish and he looks to be in shape. He’s started working out a lot lately and has gotten his down.

Can you recommend some good plant sources of protein as well as natural b12 vitamins.

GA @gailcalled

Lentils, quinoa, buckwheat, bulgar, peas, hemp seed, chia seeds.

Water is great for flushing the body. Giving your body an opportunity to get rid of plaque and build up.

Did they check your thyroid? Many many people I know had high blood pressure caused by hypothyroidism. It happened to me and my very best friend. It is one of the big signs that lets me know I need more medication now that I take thyroid medicine. As soon as my thyroid levels are back to normal my blood pressure goes back to normal. But, there are many reasons for high blood pressure, I just bring this up as something I think should be checked when high blood seems to start out of nowhere. Hit or miss with doctors if they think to check the thyroid.

There is a connection to high blood pressure and not sleepeing well. People with apnea seem to have a higher likelihood of high blood pressure, what I don’t know is if it is actually a cause or correlation. Many people with apnea are overweight also and possibly have multiple reasons their blood pressure is high. Which brings us to weight, if you are overweight losing weight will possibly help your blood pressure reading.

Some blood pressure react to salt, so cutting back sodium might help.

Exercise is supposed to help lower blood pressure.

Some people genetically just are prone to high blood pressure and can only control it with meds. If the baroceptors in the arteries don’t read the pressure correctly, then the body doesn’t regulate the pressure correctly. The body isn’t getting the information it needs to regulate effectively.

My cholesterol drops like a rock if I stop eating cholesterol. Cholesterol is only found in animal products. I still never have low cholesterol readings, but for instance my cholesterol usually hovers around 270 if I eat what I want. This has been true since my first reading at age 16 and I am 45. If I restrict egg yolks and obvious bad foods like cake and pie in a month it goes to 225. Recently, I had the highest cholesterol reading ever 290, and it freaked me out. I had been eating very badly and was in the process of moving. I went very strict and lowered my cholesterol intake to about 300 mg a week and two months later my total cholesterol was 220, a 70 point drop. If I went totally vegan I would probably get below 200, I haven’t done that yet, but I am very close to vegan at home. My only cheats are skim milk in cereal about twice a week, white omelette once in a while, and little tastes when I make a meal with animal in it for my husband. In restaurants if there is a vegan choice I will enjoy I go for it, but I do relax my rules when I eat out. I only eat out once or twice a week. I figure my body doesn’t perceive when I am taking cholesterol and it keeps pumping out the same amount whether I consume it or not, so my cholesterol just goes up if I eat it. My entore family has high cholesterol and lots of heart disease. My sister who has been vegan for many years is the only one who consistently has normal cholesterol levels.

Get enough sleep and try to reduce the amount of salt in your diet. Everyone forgets how overly salty everything is these days and that sodium can really make your BP high, even when young.

I have never been much into salt. I don’t ever use table salt. I only use small amounts when cooking. I concentrate on flavours and spices instead. Once you get away from salt, you lose your affinity for it, which is a good thing.

I’m morbidly obese but my cholesterol is not as high as it normally is for someone my weight (I’m 215) and my BP has always been normal, believe it or not. I am usually 110–120 over 70s.

@JLeslie If I go into the doctors for high blood pressure check up, will they automatically check my thyroid? (Sorry I’m new at this real life adult stuff)

They won’t routinely check your thyroid @Whitetigress. You could ask them to include it in your blood tests though.

I concur with the advice above, moderate your diet, get some regular exercise, reduce salt consumption but keep in mind this may be a genetic problem and you may still need medication.

Walk every day for at least 30 minutes.

Eat a handful of walnuts daily.

Oh you know I just remembered a study from pub med. It said that lentils had the effect of reducing plaque build up on artery walls. I can’t be more specific then that I’m pulling this from the memory banks.

I agree with the salt issue. I would even say only use a good brand of ocean salt in cooking.

@_Whitetigress I’m assuming a blood pressure check the nurse just takes your blood pressure, a thyroid test is a blood test. I’m thinking, but could be wrong, that if your doctor told you to come in for periodic blood pressure checks over the next couple of weeks (is that the case?) If he gets 3 or 4 high readings he will start you on medication. If he has not also run some blood tests I think that is a big problem, because blood pressure medicine might just treat the symptom, not the underlying cause. But, I am assuming a ton here, and assumptions are often wrong. Maybe you can tell me what your doctor has done so far? Has he done any blood tests? Did he tell you to come back again just for a blood pressure check? Do you actually have another appointment with him next time you go to his office?

@JLeslie

You’re right, thyroid tests are blood tests. I’ve had them done in the past to try and find out the cause of my weight gain that started in puberty. It was from a hormone issue that wasn’t thyroid though.

Your doctor can do a thyroid test and will look at your TSH (thyroid stimulating hormone), and also free T3 and T4 levels (all from the thyroid).

If you are concerned about your thyroid, I would bring it up to him and see what he thinks. He may order the test or he may say “Well, I don’t think it’s a problem because you’re not having symptoms x, y, z and if you were having a thyroid problem, you would have these symptoms.”

@seekingwolf Did you mean to address the OP? I am not concerned. I am already diagnosed as I said in my first answer. I had am very symptomatic. My TSH was 2.2 at a regular check up. Three months later I asked for a thyroid test when I became very symptomatic, I actually wound up walking myself into the ER. The full story is too long to bother with here. My TSH was 96.4.