Posted by Steve Harris, M.D.

In Reply to: Blood Pressure from 160/104 to 120/80 without drugs posted by bachcole

>Taking responsibility for your health works. Drugs would have had
>lots of unpleasant side affects.

How do you know? They don't for most people (after appropriate
experimentation to find the right drug for the right person). The
average person, after finding the correct drug for him or her, can't
tell when he takes it or not (except with a blood pressure cuff).

I have a hell of a hard time getting a lot of my patients to take
even 2 blood pressure pills a day, let alone a dozen herbs and vitamins
and yoga and this and that. I'm not denying that all that stuff works.
I know very well it does. It's just that for nearly everyone, blood
pressure drugs work just as well at far less total cost (counting both
money and time, which is also money). Is the other stuff healthier?
We don't know. It's sort of an article of faith to assume that because
CoQ10 is labeled a nutrient, and hydrochlorothiazide a "drug" that one
is better for you than the other. But when you take CoQ10 it goes to
places in your both where it normally isn't, and it doesn't get into
places where you normally make it (the inner membranes of your
mitochondria). So you're doing an unnatural thing with it. It's just
as unatural to have that much CoQ10 in your blood and cytosol as it is
to have any strictly man-made chemical in there. You pays your money
and you takes your chances.

That being said, I'm pretty sure that weight loss is better for you
than anything, if it's the root of a medical problem. And IF you can
do it. There certainly is enough evidence from both human and animal
studies to back up THAT. But nothing natural a patient is unwilling to
do is going to be better for him than something unnatural he is willing
to do, because the cost to him in time is less. I think the nature
purists would rather have lazy people have strokes, if they're not
willing to follow the pure drug-free ways of alternative medicine. But
I'm more interested in keeping them alive, even if they are lazy.
That's what my job is. If I was interested in "justice," and making
sure people paid the price for their laziness or lack of foresight, I
would have become an IRS agent, parole officer, sports coach, cop,
judge, construction foreman or office manager. Not a doctor.

Steve Harris, M.D.

Follow Ups:

• You are right. It does take a big commitment bachcole

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