The Nordic Diet

Move over Mediterranean Diet!  It looks like the Nordic diet is the next big thing (sadly I had to read the Daily Mail to get this story):

• For years, the Mediterranean diet with plenty of olive oil and vegetables has been lauded as the key to health and longevity.
  
  But it seems that a Scandinavian nation's cuisine could actually be better for you.
  
  Scientists have found that eating a diet based on that served up traditionally in Denmark could significantly reduce your risk of heart disease.
  
  Nordic cuisine is usually made up of fresh berries, fish and game - foods that thrive in colder northern climates.

While it is saddening to hear of another 'new diet' fad, the fact is that this diet easily falls under the paleo template.  There is no 'best diet', and the diet best for you may well be somewhere between these two diets and may change based on age, gender, activity levels, health and seasonality.

As with all these 'super-diets', they share a commonality in that they involve real foods and are based on traditional nutritional practice. The key to health and longevity is probably to avoid or limit foods that have the same name globally or that you can't make or prepare in your kitchen.  Not hard is it?

Hypertension Fix Pt2

You'll know from part one what (modest) changes I've made to my diet in terms of restrictions.  So what about my wider dietary practise?  First of all let me list my objectives (based upon the key factors that *may* by responsible for my episode of HBP):

• Alkalize my body.  Cordain suggests elevated acid is one source of hypertension.  As an aside, anyone familiar with Supperversity cannot help but be impressed my the ergogenic benefits of raised alkalinity in the body (primarily via Bicarbonate of Soda). 
• Lower chronically elevated cortisol levels - through increased sleep, reduced light exposure after sundown and elimination of excessive stressors such as cold water exposure.
• Increase iodine consumption.  This is crucial for thyroid function and implicated in HBP.  Also, a shredded idiot is still an idiot.
• Address sodium intake.  High quality sea salt is exceptional in taste.  As with much of this stuff, it is RATIOs that matter - but bear in mind that these ratios will be dynamic and perhaps impossible to manipulate directly save for providing your body with appropriate nutrition and letting it do the rest.

To this end I've made the following changes and amendments:

1. A large salad for lunch.  I still mainly eat fish or boiled eggs, and some fruit, at lunchtime but this is accompanied now by a large salad.  Pride of place in the salad usually goes to one or more of beetroot, celery, avocado and spinach.
2. Lunchtime protein will comprise of shellfish once or twice a week (this is a new introduction to my diet).  In an attempt to increase my iodine levels I've taken to eating mussels and alternatively shrimp.  Delicious.
3. Apple Cider Vinegar.  There are LOTS of health claims made for ACV - and if they are to be believed, this stuff is Chuck Norris's Tears.  I use this to dress my salad but will occasionally just squeeze fresh lemon juice over the salad instead as lemon raises your body's alkalinity significantly.
4. Sea salt (a pinch is added once or twice a week - usually to my bone broth).  I never salt my foods and figured that if I am to address my potassium to sodium ratio, I'd better ensure I have adequate levels of both (and then let my body work out where to go from there).  A small pinch on liver is particularly enjoyable.
5. Pretty much all my meat now comes from a quality butcher, not from a supermarket.  This is especially important if you make bone broth from the bones.
6. Beverages are mainly water and camomile or hibiscus tea - the latter is held to lower BP.

My number still spike on occasion, but morning and evening readings give regular sub 140/80.

I need to reiterate that I am not medically trained and am not conferring any advice as such.  I'm simply looking for non-pharmacological interventions that will allow my body to thrive and do what it evolved to do.

Hypertension is a symptom of some other dysfunction.  The bigger picture is a question of whether treating high blood pressure does any good and whether the side effects of medication are worse than the cure.

Stress and Hypertension

 The unambiguously named American Institute of Stress gave me food for thought recently.  Certainly their opening paragraph in this interview with Bjorn Folkow echoed much of my own thoughts on the matter of HT:

• What we refer to as “essential” or “primary” hypertension is generally viewed and often treated as if it were a distinct disease. However, it is merely the observation of consistent blood pressure measurements that exceed arbitrary values for which there is no obvious explanation. Like fever, hypertension is really a description rather than a diagnosis. As with an elevated temperature, it may have many varied causes that require very different treatments...As a consequence, therapy is often a hit or miss trial and error exercise or a buckshot approach consisting of a combination of drugs designed to lower an elevated blood pressure irrespective of its cause.

Sleep Architecture

We fixate on diet and exercise, but in the West, of at least equal importance is sleep.  I've ruminated on the importance and nature of sleep a few times in the past. Only a day or two ago there was broad media coverage of the health implications of blue light from modern media and its impact on our circadian rhythm.  Sleep and our circadian rhythm are every bit as important as the 'diet and exercise' tenets of health and worthy of greater understanding.

The diagram above was appropriated from a site which has a good breakdown of the sleep and shows that idea of a 'solid eight hours' is indicative of sleep debt.

The Corporate Playbook, BDA and DUK

The BMJ has launched a stinging attack on the relationship between Diabetes UK and their corporate sponsors.  The British Dietetic Association also come in for criticism.

The game really is up for these organisations. Charities such as DUK and BDA have similarly been exposed for their lack of integrity.:

• Despite the American Heart Association’s statement and the supportive scientific evidence, the food industry continues to adopt strategies to deny sugar’s role as a major causative factor in what now represents the greatest threat to our health worldwide: diet related disease. It took 50 years from the first publication (in the BMJ) linking smoking to lung cancer before the introduction of any effective legislation because Big Tobacco successfully adopted a strategy of denial, planting doubt, confusing the public, and even buying the loyalty of scientists, all at the cost of millions of lives. The same “corporate playbook” has been adopted by Big Food.

It is good to see such high profile discussion of these issues.

Follow the money!

Hypertension Fix Pt1

My numbers are getting pretty good - down to 'high normal' (or 'normal' as it used to be called), and often at least one of my readings qualifies as 'athletic'/'low normal'.  I am not sure if these lowered numbers are due to the changes I've implemeted or whether the high readings were episodic and have simply passed.  I believe the former is the case.

Potentially Useful?

Some supplements that might actually be useful in lowering blood pressure. Googling turns up these time and again for HBP (yes, I self-medicate via Google!)