Lower blood pressure herbal remedies, garlic, hawthorn - alternative treatments

“Limited and inadequate evidence is available to support the use of garlic, herbal and other complementary medicines to lower blood pressure.”

This is the conclusion of the British Hypertension Society Guidelines 2004 when asked for a statement regarding herbal remedies.

The fact that herbal remedies are natural does not guarantee that they are safe.

Many country dwellers favour such remedies in the same manner as opting for a land rover when other more modern and effective methods are now available.

You should be very careful about taking herbs to treat your high blood pressure. They should not be used in place of conventional treatments and if you do decide to take them as a supplement to your regular medication, you should tell both your doctor and your herbalist about the other medicines you take. Some herbs can interact with conventional medicines and may be harmful.

Will hawthorn products lower my blood pressure?

Hawthorn is an country-folk remedy for many cardiovascular issues. There's little evidence of real benefit and none that hawthorn helps to lower blood pressure.

Can eating lots of garlic lower blood pressure?

In the absence of large, properly controlled experiments and studies of garlic that show that eating lots of garlic can lower blood pressure. Whilst garlic supplements aren't recommended to take to help lower high blood pressure, using it in your cooking as a flavouring can help you reduce the salt and help your low sodium diet!

Lowering Blood Pressure - Success through Sleep

There has been a noticeable increase in blogs that purport to offer solutions for lowering blood pressure. Judging by the number of Google Alerts we receive each day at Blood Pressure Info it seems that the importance of controlling blood pressure is finally being acknowledged.

Then again we are not unaware of scurrilous sites that are purely hoping to turn a quick buck by claiming to offer "amazing" treatments and herbal remedies to lower blood pressure or at very least hoping for the odd adsense click to earn the price of a daily coffee.

Recently we read over at Your BP blog that research has shown that improved sleep does have a positive effect on blood pressure and we are keen to promote this as common sense prevails - the old adage "early to bed, early to rise makes a man healthy wealthy and wise".

The post went on to list suggestions as how to achieve better sleep including paying attention to the room you sleep - well ventilated, dark and quiet, the bedding you choose to sleep in and methods of relaxation all play an important part in good sleep behaviour.

To exclude light intrusion it is worth considering blackout roller blinds or well fitted Venetian blinds rather than ordinary ready made curtains. Both blinds and curtains allow proper ventilation which is important for restful deep sleep.

The conclusion of the research was that poor sleep was a contributory factor in raising blood pressure levels and it is something that most people can do something about to help themselves.