Hard Truths About Blood Pressure
We’ve all seen movies in which the plot unfolds in frustratingly predictable ways. We say in our minds to the characters, “Don’t do that! It’s obvious what’ll happen next!” That’s the beauty of being an outside observer. But people with diabetes may not realize that a highly predictable and harmful health pattern might also be playing out in their own body.
• Diabetes makes your arteries more susceptible to hardening (atherosclerosis).
• As a result, your blood pressure goes up.
• As a result, you’re prone to more serious heart problems.
How common is this sequence? Fully 60 percent of people with diabetes have high blood pressure. And the chances of a person with diabetes having serious heart disease are several times greater than for people without diabetes. Which is good reason to understand blood pressure, to take it seriously, and to do what it takes not to let this plot take its natural, sad course.
High blood pressure isn’t new. For the last century or so, that simple measurement has helped identify people whose hearts could betray them at any moment. Still, people tend to underestimate how serious the problem is. Some of that is because high blood pressure has no symptoms: You don’t feel it, see it, or hear it. And for many of us, we don’t understand it and how it might affect us. Our goal today is to fix that.
And the easiest way is with the well-used but effective “garden hose” analogy. If you turn on the water and partially block the end of the hose with your thumb, the hose will bulge and the water will squirt out more forcefully around your thumb. Add a spray nozzle and you can increase the pressure enough to knock dirt off lawn furniture or loose paint off the exterior of your house. And all you’ve done is narrow the opening through which water must pass.
Your arteries are a lot like that hose, except that they form a closed loop. Blood is pumped through them from the heart, and courses through the body before returning to the heart and lungs to pick up fresh oxygen and be pumped back out again. But when blood pressure rises for whatever reason—such as narrowing of the arteries—the blood, which has no passageway out of the system, is forced up against the artery walls with increasingly brutal force.
Over time, the pressure can create bulges in the weak parts of artery walls, forcing the body to make repairs that stiffen the walls and reduce flexibility of the arteries. What’s more, as blood under pressure races through your arteries, it can knock off pieces of loose built-up plaque and detritus which can lodge in narrowed passageways, blocking the flow of blood to the heart and triggering a heart attack. Even if high blood pressure doesn’t lead to a heart attack, it causes your heart to work harder to push blood through your circulatory system. This taxes your heart muscle, causing your heart to enlarge and weaken. Eventually, the muscle may fail.
That’s the reason why your blood pressure is taken before you even see the doctor at every medical appointment. It’s that important. The exact causes of high blood pressure are still a bit of a mystery. But we do know that several factors and conditions may play a role.
• Smoking
• Being overweight or obese
• Lack of physical activity
• Too much salt in the diet
• Too much alcohol consumption (more than 1 to 2 drinks per day)
• Stress
• Older age
• Genetics
• And as we said at the start, diabetes
How to combat it? We’ll cover this in a future issue. But for now, monitor your blood pressure closely and often. Blood pressure tends to rise and fall based on continuously changing variables such as diet, stress, sleep, and activity levels. The best indicator of your blood pressure is the average of multiple screenings taken at different times of the day.
• Diabetes makes your arteries more susceptible to hardening (atherosclerosis).
• As a result, your blood pressure goes up.
• As a result, you’re prone to more serious heart problems.
How common is this sequence? Fully 60 percent of people with diabetes have high blood pressure. And the chances of a person with diabetes having serious heart disease are several times greater than for people without diabetes. Which is good reason to understand blood pressure, to take it seriously, and to do what it takes not to let this plot take its natural, sad course.
High blood pressure isn’t new. For the last century or so, that simple measurement has helped identify people whose hearts could betray them at any moment. Still, people tend to underestimate how serious the problem is. Some of that is because high blood pressure has no symptoms: You don’t feel it, see it, or hear it. And for many of us, we don’t understand it and how it might affect us. Our goal today is to fix that.
And the easiest way is with the well-used but effective “garden hose” analogy. If you turn on the water and partially block the end of the hose with your thumb, the hose will bulge and the water will squirt out more forcefully around your thumb. Add a spray nozzle and you can increase the pressure enough to knock dirt off lawn furniture or loose paint off the exterior of your house. And all you’ve done is narrow the opening through which water must pass.
Your arteries are a lot like that hose, except that they form a closed loop. Blood is pumped through them from the heart, and courses through the body before returning to the heart and lungs to pick up fresh oxygen and be pumped back out again. But when blood pressure rises for whatever reason—such as narrowing of the arteries—the blood, which has no passageway out of the system, is forced up against the artery walls with increasingly brutal force.
Over time, the pressure can create bulges in the weak parts of artery walls, forcing the body to make repairs that stiffen the walls and reduce flexibility of the arteries. What’s more, as blood under pressure races through your arteries, it can knock off pieces of loose built-up plaque and detritus which can lodge in narrowed passageways, blocking the flow of blood to the heart and triggering a heart attack. Even if high blood pressure doesn’t lead to a heart attack, it causes your heart to work harder to push blood through your circulatory system. This taxes your heart muscle, causing your heart to enlarge and weaken. Eventually, the muscle may fail.
That’s the reason why your blood pressure is taken before you even see the doctor at every medical appointment. It’s that important. The exact causes of high blood pressure are still a bit of a mystery. But we do know that several factors and conditions may play a role.
• Smoking
• Being overweight or obese
• Lack of physical activity
• Too much salt in the diet
• Too much alcohol consumption (more than 1 to 2 drinks per day)
• Stress
• Older age
• Genetics
• And as we said at the start, diabetes
How to combat it? We’ll cover this in a future issue. But for now, monitor your blood pressure closely and often. Blood pressure tends to rise and fall based on continuously changing variables such as diet, stress, sleep, and activity levels. The best indicator of your blood pressure is the average of multiple screenings taken at different times of the day.
Featured Recipe
Ginger CookiesIf you crave a sweet, delicious cookie every now and then, consider these. They’re not ultra-healthy (each cookie is 95 calories and 16 g of carbs), but have diabetes-friendly ginger and cinnamon in them. Have one (and just one!) as an after-dinner treat, and they’re fine for a diabetes diet.
Makes 12 cookies
Ingredients:
2/3 cup all-purpose flour
2/3 cup whole-wheat flour
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
2 teaspoons ground ginger
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
3 tablespoons butter
4 tablespoons light corn syrup
2/3 cup all-purpose flour
2/3 cup whole-wheat flour
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
2 teaspoons ground ginger
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
3 tablespoons butter
4 tablespoons light corn syrup
Preparation:
1 Preheat oven to 375°F. Grease a cookie sheet; set aside. Sift the all-purpose flour and whole-wheat flours, baking soda, ginger, and cinnamon in a large bowl, tipping in any bran left in the sieve.
2 Melt the butter with the corn syrup in a small saucepan over low heat, stirring occasionally. Pour melted mixture onto the dry ingredients and stir to bind them together into a firm dough.
3 Break off a walnut sized lump of dough, and roll it into a ball on the palm of your hand. Press it flat into a thick cookie, about 2 1/2 inches in diameter, and place on the cookie sheet. Repeat with remaining dough. (Or roll out the dough and stamp out decorative shapes.)
4 Bake the cookies until they are slightly risen and brown, 8 to 10 minutes. Let cool on the cookie sheet until they are firm enough to lift without breaking, 2 to 3 minutes. Transfer the cookies to a wire rack to cool completely. The cookies will keep in an airtight container up to 5 days.
Per cookie: 95 cal, 3 g fat (2 g sat), 16 g carbs, 2 g protein, 1 g fiber, 8 mg chol, 78 mg sodium, 7 mg calcium
1 Preheat oven to 375°F. Grease a cookie sheet; set aside. Sift the all-purpose flour and whole-wheat flours, baking soda, ginger, and cinnamon in a large bowl, tipping in any bran left in the sieve.
2 Melt the butter with the corn syrup in a small saucepan over low heat, stirring occasionally. Pour melted mixture onto the dry ingredients and stir to bind them together into a firm dough.
3 Break off a walnut sized lump of dough, and roll it into a ball on the palm of your hand. Press it flat into a thick cookie, about 2 1/2 inches in diameter, and place on the cookie sheet. Repeat with remaining dough. (Or roll out the dough and stamp out decorative shapes.)
4 Bake the cookies until they are slightly risen and brown, 8 to 10 minutes. Let cool on the cookie sheet until they are firm enough to lift without breaking, 2 to 3 minutes. Transfer the cookies to a wire rack to cool completely. The cookies will keep in an airtight container up to 5 days.
Per cookie: 95 cal, 3 g fat (2 g sat), 16 g carbs, 2 g protein, 1 g fiber, 8 mg chol, 78 mg sodium, 7 mg calcium
Great Ideas
Diabetes Bread-Buying Guide
Bread can be a nutritious part of your daily diet, or it can be a minefield of danger for your blood sugar. Follow these simple bread-buying tips and you’ll never have to wonder if your loaf of bread is sabotaging your diabetes maintenance.
• Buy whole-grain bread with the word “whole” as the first ingredient.
• Look for at least 3 grams of fiber per serving.
• The coarser the bread, the better. That texture indicates that the healthiest parts of the grain have been preserved. And the coarser the grain, the more it requires digestion, slowing the release of blood sugar into your system. Even whole wheat raises blood sugar more when it’s finely ground than when it’s coarser.
• If you see sugar, corn syrup, or any other sweetener in the first four ingredients, just say no.
• If shopping at a bakery where breads are fresh and unlabeled, be sure to ask about what type of flour or grain was used before buying. Molasses, fruit, and other add-ins can make a white bread appear the color of whole-grain bread.
• Buy whole-grain bread with the word “whole” as the first ingredient.
• Look for at least 3 grams of fiber per serving.
• The coarser the bread, the better. That texture indicates that the healthiest parts of the grain have been preserved. And the coarser the grain, the more it requires digestion, slowing the release of blood sugar into your system. Even whole wheat raises blood sugar more when it’s finely ground than when it’s coarser.
• If you see sugar, corn syrup, or any other sweetener in the first four ingredients, just say no.
• If shopping at a bakery where breads are fresh and unlabeled, be sure to ask about what type of flour or grain was used before buying. Molasses, fruit, and other add-ins can make a white bread appear the color of whole-grain bread.
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