Hypertension and Dehydration

What Is Dehydration?

Dehydration is defined as the excessive loss of body fluid. Symptoms generally become noticeable with mild dehydration which is the loss of 1- 2% of one’s normal water volume.

What Causes Dehydration?

At Optimum Health , the main cause for dehydration is drinking less water than is needed. Your need is based on your size and the amount of sweating you do. A protein deficiency is what we have found to be the main reason why people drink less water than they need. In more severe causes, people can end up with thickened, dried skin, brittle hair, tongue sticking to roof of mouth, decreased urinating and more.

Can Dehydration Cause Hypertension?

Absolutely. Dehydration is one of the primary causes of hypertension. Think of cooking oatmeal with plenty of water in the pot. Once the oatmeal is cooked, you can turn the pot upside down and the oatmeal will run out of the pot. Why? Because gravity is strong enough to pull the oatmeal from the pot. If you put too little water in the pot when cooking the oatmeal, the oatmeal will not run out of the pot when you turn it upside down. Why? Because gravity is not strong enough to pull the thick oatmeal from the pot.

This is what happens when you don’t drink enough water and end up dehydrated. When you don’t drink enough water, you don’t put enough water in your blood causing your blood to become too thick. When the heart squeezes and pushes the thick blood up into the aorta, the blood has to fall down out of the aorta where the aorta bends. This is the equivalent of turning the pot of oatmeal upside down.

Heart, Aorta

If the blood is too thick, gravity will not be strong enough to pull it down to your feet. Therefore, the muscles have to begin squeezing to push the blood down to your feet. Once these muscles squeeze, they increase the pressure inside the blood vessels causing what doctors call hypertension. With this in mind, think about what it would take to decrease this increased or high blood pressure. It would simply be a matter of thinning the thick blood. Based on what you just read, wouldn’t drinking more water be the best way to do that!

“I can keep up with my children again.

My blood pressure stays normal!”

Gloria C, Richmond, Virginia

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How Do I Know If Dehydration is Leading To My Hypertension?

When I first heard the explanation of how dehydration leads to hypertension, I (Tianya S. Clark, B.S., CNHP) remember thinking, “This sounds good, but as my professor used to say, “There is nothing like an ugly little fact to mess up a perfectly beautiful theory”. As if reading my mind, Dr. Anstett went on to explain to our class that Chinese medicine represents the heart as wood that is burning. If a wood fire is burning too high (the heart working too hard) what do you do to slow it down? You put water on the fire. In the same way, you would drink more water to slow the burning wood (hypertension). In other words, Chinese medicine’s official stand is “drinking water lower can eliminate hypertension”.

Well, how does western medicine view it? When a person has hypertension, they are often given diuretics to make them urinate. Drinking more water will make you urinate. They are also given blood thinners. Drinking more water will thin your blood. Finally, they are often given calcium channel blockers to prevent the muscles from squeezing the blood vessels. Drinking the water to thin the blood will prevent the need for these muscle to squeeze. Makes sense doesn’t it!

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“I feel wonderful. I can walk long distances again and my

blood pressure sits right at 121/80.”

Valerie G, Richmond, Virginia

Should I Stop My Hypertension Medicine?

Please take your hypertension medicine! Drinking lots of water does not mean that you get to just stop taking your hypertension medicine. The medical community calls hypertension the silent killer because it kills without notice. Therefore, keep taking your medicine while you monitor your blood pressure closely and keep good records to present to your physician.

Increase your water to the proper amount, unless you have been told by a qualified health professional not to do so. Tell your physician what you are doing and that you want him/her to be on alert that your pressure should be monitored closely and that your medicine may need to be decreased. Most physicians won’t believe you. That is understandable as this goes against their training. Fortunately, you don’t need for them to believe you. You just need for them to be cooperative. As time goes by, your pressure should keep dropping until it becomes normal. At that point, the medicine will make your blood pressure too low and your physician will decrease your medicine. Eventually, the physician will take you off of all of your hypertension medicines. We have this happen time and time again at our center.

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“I feel great! Even better, my doctor has taken me off 3 of my

hypertension medicines and decreased the last one.”

Forestine B, Heathsville, Virginia

There are times when drinking the proper amount of water will not eliminate your high blood pressure. This is another reason why you should continue to take your medicine. If you are one of the people whose blood pressure does not normalize with drinking the proper amount of water, recognize that you have more than one reason for your hypertension. Then consider some of the other root causes for hypertension such as mercury exposure from amalgams (the silver or black colored fillings) in your teeth and seafood.

Mercury toxicity is the second most common cause of high blood pressure that we see at our natural healthcare center. Mercury usually causes the top number of your blood pressure (systolic) to go up while the bottom number (diastolic) stays fairly normal or even low. This is called split systolic hypertension. A typical split systolic hypertension reading could be 140/75 or possibly 160/90. We theorize that the mercury may thicken the blood. At Optimum Health, we use the total body cleanse process to help your body lower the mercury levels which usually results in normal blood pressure levels.