There were 10% MORE deaths in people with mild hypertension taking blood pressure drugs

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Tuesday, April 23, 2019 9:25 am Email this article

There were 10% MORE deaths in people with mild hypertension (140-159 / 90-99 mm Hg) who were taking blood pressure drugs during a median follow-up of 5.8 years (4.49% died vs 4.08%) than people of the same age and same blood pressure who were NOT taking blood pressure drugs according to a 2018 study.

This study suggests to me that blood pressure drugs INCREASE the risk of death in people with mild hypertension.

Data from a 2004 study of older women showed the same thing, that older women with hypertension, and my guess is that most of them had mild hypertension, were MORE likely to die from cardiovascular disease alone in 7 of 8 drug groups (data was only given for death from cardiovascular disease, but not given for total mortality) than women with hypertension who were NOT taking blood pressure drugs.

I believe that this is because mild hypertension is NOT a disease and does NOT increase your risk of death, so giving drugs to lower blood pressure cannot possibly lower your risk of death, and instead can only INCREASE your risk of death.

In 2000, Sidney Port, PhD, a statistician from UCLA, found that our beliefs about blood pressure, the idea that there is a linear relationship between blood pressure and the risk of death, that every little increase in blood pressure increases the risk of death, is WRONG.

Sid Port found that with blood pressure, there is a threshold effect, and only above a certain threshold, which depends on your age and your gender, does the risk of death increase.

Sid Port found that below this threshold, there is NO increased risk of death (except when blood pressure is too low).

Sid Port found that the threshold is very roughly similar to the old rule-of-thumb, that systolic pressure should not exceed 100 plus your age.

So if you are 50 it should not exceed 150.

If you are 60, it should not exceed 160.

If you are 70, it should not exceed 170.

(Sid Port’s calculations are somewhat different than this, but it is close enough, and this is the easiest way to remember it.)

Potassium Bicarbonate lowered my blood pressure by about 20 points, from about 140 to 120 mm Hg

If you need to lower your blood pressure, you do NOT need to take blood pressure drugs.

You can lower your blood pressure with Potassium Bicarbonate.

Potassium bicarbonate lowered 
my blood pressure by about 20 points, from about 140 to 120 mm Hg.

I took 5,000 mg of potassium bicarbonate which contains 39% potassium or roughly 2,000 mg of potassium per day.

Potassium Bicarbonate is vastly superior to all blood pressure drugs

I believe that potassium bicarbonate is vastly superior to all blood pressure drugs for improving health and longevity because it is giving the body exactly what it needs—more potassium and more bicarbonate—rather than doing unnatural things that blood pressure drugs do such as inhibiting pathways and blocking receptors, which is NOT the cause of the elevated blood pressure in the first place.

Videos about Potassium Bicarbonate

I have posted at least two (2) videos on YouTube about the benefits of potassium bicarbonate.

The first video is titled “Potassium bicarbonate reduces blood pressure” and is posted here.

The second video is titled “Potassium bicarbonate superior to potassium chloride” posted here.

Getting more potassium from food: bananas and orange juice

You can also increase your potassium intake to get the same amount of potassium that I took by eating potassium-rich foods such as eating five (5) bananas per day or drinking 32 ounces of orange juice per day.

One medium banana contains 425 mg of potassium.

Eight ounces (one cup) of orange juice contains 480 mg of potassium.

Blood pressure guidelines are written by people paid by the drug companies

But blood pressure guidelines — and all the other guidelines — are written by people paid by the drug companies so, of course, they want to scare as many people as possible into taking blood pressure drugs (and cholesterol drugs and diabetes drugs) so they can make as much money as possible.

Blood pressure guidelines — and cholesterol guidelines and diabetes guidelines, etc — are NOT about truth, they are about making money.

Reference

Sheppard JP, Stevens S, Stevens R, Martin U, Mant J, Hobbs FDR, and McManus RJ. Benefits and Harms of Antihypertensive Treatment in Low-Risk Patients With Mild Hypertension. JAMA Intern Med, 2018 Dec 1; 178(12): 1626-1634.

Author’s Contact Info

James P. Sheppard, PhD
Nuffield Department of Primary Care Health Sciences
University of Oxford, Woodstock Road
Oxford, OX2 6GG, United Kingdom
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