Dear DOCTOR Owen:

I have high blood pressure and feel terrible on the medication prescribed by my doctor. He explained that the blood pressure would probably be controlled if I would both lose weight and exercise. It is really difficult for me to find the time to exercise, and I have to eat out with clients frequently. My dilemma seems hopeless.

Pressured

Dear “Pressured”:

Your doctor’s explanation is very correct.

Yours is a common dilemma. I wonder: Have you given this entire matter serious consideration? If not, realize that hypertension leads to heart attack, stroke, kidney failure—often at an early age. All blood pressure medications have side effects; none have been found to be as safe or predictive of a good outcome as controlling this condition through diet and exercise. In addition, the pills are expensive, and often lead to sexual or behavioral changes because many of them work by affecting the nervous system. Diet and exercise, though, improve those functions.

If you had a child who was stricken with a fatal or serious disease, you would seek the best possible treatment. If there were a serious threat to your job or business, you’d find the time and energy to correct the problem and save your income. Why, then, would you put anything ahead of your health? Really think about this. Write down the reasons why you cannot form a diet and exercise plan. When you do this, all of your issues will evaporate.

At my clinic, the average patient is off blood pressure medication in less than six weeks, while 83% are able to discontinue their medications completely. Imagine all the additional benefits those patients experience—lower cholesterol and blood sugar, decreased joint and spinal pain, and increased energy and productivity. These changes are not due to medical treatment, but because of the advice of professional exercise trainers and diet counselors.

Dieting causes the immediate lowering of insulin levels, a rapid fall in salt hormone (which causes decreased swelling and fluid retention), the lowering of cortisone levels and decreased spasms of the arteries by these hormones, and a “calmer” autonomic nervous system. In fact, the hormone levels of people on very low calorie diets have been compared to—and are almost identical with— levels of the few remaining native cultures that still hunt and gather food for survival. Rarely do these populations have high blood pressure. But, when introduced to the typical Western culture diet, they quickly develop the same changes seen in hypertensive, diabetic, and hyperlipidemic (cholesterol) patients.

We are truly victims of our culture. But, like all victims, we remain that way only if we choose to do so. That is, we are slaves to, or captives of, our situations by choice.

Take time to contemplate your choices. If you need help with motivation, get one of the many treatises written by Victor Frankel at your local library. He was a Jewish prisoner in Nazi Germany, who was tortured and brainwashed, but remained resilient by turning inward to visualize himself and his situation clearly. His writings may help you put the obstacles expressed in your letter in their true perspective. Your health, relationships with family and loved ones, finances, career—even your survival—will be changed by your decisions.