American Heart Month: 7 Simple Ways to Lower Blood Pressure This Week

10 Feb 2026 Cardiology, General Health

February is American Heart Month, a good reminder that small daily choices can make a real difference for your heart. Heart disease remains the leading cause of death in the U.S., and blood pressure is one of the most important numbers to manage.

If your blood pressure has been running high, don’t panic. You don’t need to change everything overnight. Start with these seven practical steps this week.

1) Check your blood pressure correctly at home

Measure at the same times each day (for example, morning and evening), sit quietly for 5 minutes first, keep your arm supported at heart level, and avoid caffeine, exercise, or smoking for 30 minutes beforehand. Bring your readings to your next visit. A single high reading is not a diagnosis, but repeated elevated readings are worth acting on.

2) Cut back on sodium, starting today

A fast win is reducing salt from packaged and restaurant foods. Aim for fresh meals when possible, read labels, and choose lower-sodium options. Lower sodium intake is a proven way to reduce blood pressure.

3) Follow a DASH-style plate

The DASH eating pattern emphasizes vegetables, fruits, whole grains, beans, nuts, lean proteins, and low-fat dairy while limiting high-sodium and highly processed foods. This pattern is specifically recommended for blood pressure control and can help within weeks.

4) Move your body most days

Even brisk walking helps. A practical target is about 30 minutes most days (you can split it into shorter sessions). Consistent activity improves blood pressure and overall cardiovascular health.

5) Sleep better this week

Poor sleep can push blood pressure higher. Try a regular sleep schedule, limit late caffeine and alcohol, and reduce screen time before bed. If you snore loudly or feel exhausted despite sleep, ask about sleep apnea screening.

6) Limit alcohol and avoid tobacco

Alcohol can raise blood pressure, especially at higher intake levels. Tobacco and nicotine products also stress the cardiovascular system. Reducing either one helps quickly and meaningfully.

7) Take medications exactly as prescribed

If you’ve been prescribed blood pressure medicine, consistency matters. Don’t stop or adjust doses on your own. If side effects are bothering you, talk to your clinician. There are alternatives.

Know your numbers

According to American Heart Association categories, blood pressure under 120/80 is considered normal, and persistent readings at or above 130/80 may indicate hypertension and should be discussed with your care team.

When to seek urgent care

If blood pressure is over 180/120 and you have symptoms such as chest pain, shortness of breath, weakness or numbness, vision changes, or trouble speaking, seek emergency care immediately.

Small steps this week can lead to major gains over time. This American Heart Month, pick two or three actions from this list and start now! Your heart will thank you.

Green Tea – Its Many Health Benefits

21 Aug 2014 Cardiology, Diabetes Care, General Health

Green tea is without question among the healthiest beverages to date, with research displaying impressive health benefits not only for one’s heart, but for one’s bones, weight, vision, and even one’s brain. Anyone with an interest in improving his or her health, and specifically his or her brain health, green tea is definitely worth a consideration.

Green Tea Improves Brain Health

According to the Mercola Natural Health Center, an individual highly regarded in the eyes of Doctors Clinic Houston, a recent study of twelve virile volunteers, the participants receiving a beverage that contained just under 28 grams of green tea extract displayed an increased connectivity between the parietal and frontal cortex of the brain compared to those who drank a non-green tea beverage.

Researchers suggest that one’s cognitive functioning is strengthened if people consume pure green tea extract. And that is by far among the great benefits of tea – if you don’t particularly like it for its taste (or if you only drink it once in a blue moon), you can still get the health benefits by consuming it in supplemental extract form.

The Many Other Health Benefits of green Tea

It is not just your brain that gets these wondrous benefits from green tea. Below is a list of the other ways green tea improves ones health.

The Reduction Mortality; Chronic Inflammation

Empirical studies indicate that people who drink green tea also tend to live longer. Hear problems are reduced drastically. Research also makes the case that there are holistic benefits to consuming this wondrous herb, which include a lowering of blood pressure and chronic inflammation.

Heart Health

Dr. Mercola, health expert and founder of the Natural Health Center, states that green tea contributes to an improvement of blood flow and to the ability of one’s arteries to relax. In order to get these benefits, research suggests that a couple of cups of green tea each day may help prevent heart disease. Nowadays, just about every Houston doctor recommends a cup of green tea each day or so.

Type-2 Diabetes

A single study showed that people who consume around seven cups of green tea daily had a 29% lower risk of developing type two diabetes than individuals who consumed less than a single cup per week.

Vision Health

Catechins in green tea can also protect you against eye problems like glaucoma. Research has disinterred the fact that the compounds travel from your digestive system to the tissues of your eyes. During the study, the catechins found in green tea were absorbed into various parts of the eyes anywhere from 30 minutes to 12 hours after rats were given tea.

Cancer

Green tea components show a tendency to downregulate the expression of proteins involved in inflammation, cell signalization, cell motility, and angiogenesis, while an association between green tea intake and decreased risk of cancers (including ovarian and breast) has been reported.

Sugar: A Leading Promoter of Cancer & Heart Disease

21 Jul 2014 Cancer Treatments, Cardiology, Diabetes Care, General Health

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More than 1.6 million new cancer cases are expected to be diagnosed in the United States of America this year – and over half a million are expected to die from the disease. Another 600,000 Americans die every single year due to heart disease – it being the number one cause of death among both males and females.

Regardless of the incredible technological advances over the past century, Western medicine still has no idea of how to stop the progression of these two diseases in their tracks.

It’s becoming more and more clear that many of the conventional strategies claiming to properly and effectively treat and prevent cancer and heart disease hold many flawed assumptions that do more harm than they do good.

The sad thing is that these conventional strategies actually fail to address the core of the problem: that a diet high in sugar and processed foods is the culprit.

For many years, saturated fats have been where physicians and nutrition experts were placing the blame. They thought that eating foods high in saturated fat would lead to clogged arteries, which would then lead to the inevitable heart problems. Now, more and more folks are beginning to realize that saturated fats are healthy, and necessary for optimal brain function.

What they have realized is that a diet high in sugar, and fructose in particular, is what leads to serious health problems – heart disease, cancer, and many others. Equipped with this pivotal information puts you in the driver’s seat when it comes to the prevention of these pernicious diseases.

So How Much Sugar Is in Your Diet?

So high sugar consumption deleteriously affects one’s health. But hold on a second, cutting out sugars is not the be all end all. Many food ingredients out there do even more damage than sugar, and the bad thing is that there are a few that are in over half of the boxed foods that you find in the grocery store. They all have funky, difficult to pronounce names. The word sugar isn’t appended to them to warn you of how unhealthy they are. Rather, it seems as though there is an attempt to obscure the truth from the general public, so that they do not know what they are eating. If they did, they would be able to make wiser, healthier choices and thus boycott the companies that pump out foods with harmful ingredients.

Hidden sugar, in the form of high fructose corn syrup is in just about every single processed food imaginable. You can even find it in stuff that you would generally consider to be the healthiest foods of all – like yogurt and certain juices. They are in just about every soda you can think of, and now, they are beginning to appear in just about every other bread or sauce that you buy from the store. The majority of the grains have this noxious corn syrup. Grain-based staples, like pancakes, muffins and cereals, have a bunch of sugar in them already (they quickly turn to sugar in your body). Now, adding high fructose corn syrup into the mix is just adding fuel to the fire.

Studies indicate that if you limit your sugar, you dramatically decrease your chances of developing cancer – and that includes breast and colon cancers. Those who want to optimize their health need to think long and hard before they make their next trip to the grocery store. Chances are, they are consuming far too much of both sugar and high fructose corn syrup.

Fructose Increases Cancer Risk

As we mentioned earlier, high fructose corn syrup is in just about every single soda out there. Many companies have attempted to conceal this fact by using a different name for the ingredient instead. Regardless, the body’s reaction to the exposure of such unhealthy stuff is going to be the same. DNA damage, altered cellular metabolism and inflammation are all symptoms that develop as a result of drinking too much soda.

Tumor cells thrive in glucose. This, by itself, confirms the old adage that sugar feeds cancer. Cells have the capacity to use fructose for cell division. A rapid and unmitigated growth of cells is what causes cancer. The tumors you see are a bunch of cells that have reproduced at a rate much faster than normal.

This by no means suggests that one ought to totally avoid fruits just because they are high in sugar as well. The benefits of fruit definitely outweigh any concerns regarding fructose. It is recommended not to juice fruits and to eat them whole. Fruits today are a great deal sweeter than they were in the past, and for that, should be consumed in moderation. The greatest problem, though, is the high fructose corn syrup that is in practically each and every one of the processed foods and drinks you see.

Don’t Forget the Exercise

Exercise actually does more than merely help you look thin and good. Controlling your blood-glucose and insulin levels can be an incredibly effective way of recovering from cancer. Exercise is a fantastic way of doing this. Of course, this is not the be all end all by any stretch of the imagination. But exercise is a big factor, if not in recovering from cancer, at the very least, preventing cancer. Folks who spend a great deal of time getting their heart rate up and running do seem to develop cancer much less than the inert who remain listless on a regular basis.

In short, maintaining a healthy weight and exercising on the regular creates an incredibly healthy feedback loop that makes certain that insulin and leptin levels are at an optimal level. Insulin and leptin resistance – mostly driven by not exercising and by eating a lot of refined sugars – are the underlying factors that result in pretty much the majority of chronic diseases.

Alcohol Awareness

18 Apr 2014 Cardiology, General Health, Occupational Medicine

April Is Alcohol Awareness Month

April marks Alcohol Awareness Month, a nationwide campaign intended to raise awareness of the health and social problems that excessive alcohol consumption can cause for individuals, their families, and their communities. Excessive drinking is a dangerous behavior for both men and women. This year, CDC is drawing attention to the risks to women’s health from binge drinking, the most common type of excessive alcohol consumption by adults.

Binge Drinking and the Risks to Women’s Health

  • Binge drinking is defined as consuming 4 or more drinks per occasion for women and 5 or more drinks per occasion for men. It is a common and dangerous behavior that contributes to more than 11,500 deaths among women in the U.S. each year—approximately 32 deaths per day.
  • In 2009, more than 1 out of every 10 women reported binge drinking during the past 30 days. On average, women who binge drink said they engaged in this risky behavior at least three times per month. Among women binge drinkers, they consume, on average, almost six drinks per drinking occasion, which exceeds the threshold for binge drinking.
  • Binge drinking usually leads to impairment, and women who binge drink with greater frequency and intensity put themselves and those around them at increased risk of experiencing alcohol-related harms, particularly if they are pregnant or may become pregnant.
  • Binge drinking increases the risk for breast cancer, heart disease, and stroke, all of which are leading causes of death in women.

Gender Differences and Alcohol Consumption

  • Upon drinking equal amounts, women tend to absorb more alcohol when they drink, and take longer to break it down and remove it from their bodies compared to their male counterparts. These differences are caused by differences in body composition and chemistry between men and women. Even when they drink the same amount of alcohol, women tend to have higher levels of alcohol in their blood than men, and the immediate effects of impairment occur more quickly and last longer.
  • Alcohol tends to leave the body at a slower rate in women who take birth control pills compared with those who do not. The result can be greater alcohol impairment in women who take birth control pills.

Risk for Sexual Assault

  • Binge drinking is a risk factor for sexual assault, especially among young women in college settings. The risk for rape or sexual assault increases when both the perpetrator and victim have used alcohol before the attack.

Risk of HIV and other Sexually Transmitted Infections (STIs)

Alcohol Consumption and Pregnancy

  • No amount of alcohol is safe to drink while pregnant.There is also no safe time during pregnancy to drink, and no safe kind of alcohol.
  • Women who drink alcohol while pregnant increase their risk of having a baby with fetal alcohol spectrum disorders (FASDs). This group of conditions includes physical and intellectual disabilities, as well as problems with behavior and learning. Often, a person has a mix of these problems. FASDs are a leading known cause of intellectual disability and birth defects. FASDs are completely preventable if a woman does not drink while she is pregnant or may become pregnant.
  • Women should not drink alcohol if they are planning to become pregnant or are sexually active and do not use effective birth control because they could become pregnant and not know for several weeks. In 2001, about one-half of all pregnancies in the United States were unplanned.
  • National surveys show that about 6 out of every 10 women of child-bearing age (18–44 years) use alcohol, and about one-third of women in this age group who drink alcohol binge drink.
  • Female binge drinkers are more likely to engage in unsafe sexual activities compared with women who are not binge drinkers. Binge drinking increases the risk for unintended pregnancy which may lead to a delay in recognizing pregnancy. If a woman does not recognize that she is pregnant and she continues drinking, she can expose her developing fetus to alcohol without realizing it.

Alcohol Consumption and Chronic Diseases:

Women are often more vulnerable than men to the long-term effects of alcohol on their health. Over time, drinking too much alcohol can lead to

  • Cancer: Alcohol consumption increases the risk for breast cancer and cancer of the mouth, throat, esophagus, liver, and colon.
  • Liver Disease: The risk for cirrhosis and other alcohol-related liver diseases is higher for women than for men.
  • Heart Problems: Studies have shown that women who drink excessively are at increased risk for damage to the heart muscle than men. Binge drinking can lead to high blood pressure and increase the risk for heart attack and stroke.

Prevention Works

Binge drinking and the harms that result from it can be prevented. Prevention strategies require action at individual and population levels and must consider ways to create community environments that discourage binge drinking by women and their families.

All Women Can

  • Avoid drinking alcohol if pregnant or planning to become pregnant. Remember—Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorders are 100% preventable.
  • Choose not to binge drink and help others not to do it. Binge drinking leads to many health and social problems for the drinkers, their families, and their communities. If women choose to drink alcoholic beverages, they should do so in moderation. Moderate drinking is defined as the consumption of up to one drink per day for women and up to two drinks per day for men, according to the 2010 Dietary Guidelines for Americans. Adobe PDF file [PDF – 967KB]External Web Site Icon
  • Seek care from a health care provider for excessive drinking. The U.S. Preventive Services Task ForceExternal Web Site Icon recommends screening and behavioral counseling for alcohol misuse by adults, including pregnant women. Screening and Brief Intervention has been shown to significantly decrease the number of drinks consumed per week and the number of binge drinking episodes.

State and Community Leaders Can

  • Support efforts to implement effective population-level strategies to prevent binge drinking. States and communities can reduce excessive alcohol use, including binge and underage drinking, among their residents by implementing evidence-based population strategies recommended by the Guide to Community Preventive ServicesExternal Web Site Icon. These strategies include increasing alcohol excise taxes, regulating alcohol outlet density, and maintaining and enforcing the age 21 years minimum legal drinking age (MLDA).
  • Continue to monitor binge drinking levels. Measuring the magnitude of binge drinking in the general population and specific groups at high risk (e.g., women of childbearing age) provides evidence for the need to implement population-level public health strategies for reducing binge drinking. The resulting data also serve as indicators of progress in reducing overall binge drinking levels, including binge drinking occasions and the number of drinks consumed.

New Blood Pressure Facts Revealed

18 Feb 2014 Cardiology, Diabetes Care, General Health

New science is changing the way people 50 and older judge their blood pressure, and a slew of new studies on foods and hypertension suggest it may be easier than you thought to reduce high blood pressure.

For adults under 65, it’s that upper number in your blood pressure reading that may be the best indicator of future heart problems or even premature death. A normal reading is around 120/80. If that first number is 140 or higher, you have reason for concern.

For those 65 and older, however, it’s a trickier situation. Readings may vary more and doctors need to be careful in prescribing blood pressure medication for older patients.

One safe, effective way to decrease blood pressure for all age groups is to eat foods that work naturally to dilate blood vessels so the heart doesn’t have to work so hard.

Eat more of these six fabulous foods for an easy, delicious way to help lower your blood pressure numbers:

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