High blood pressure, known in the medical trade as arterial hypertension, is a common ailment in the Western world, but very little is known about its causes.

Some people have an inherited tendency to become hypertensive and must severely limit their salt intake or take diuretic medications regularly to avoid disastrous complications. Many others gradually develop high blood pressure as they age, which may not be very threatening in itself but takes on a more sinister importance when it occurs along with a pattern of overweight, smoking and clogged arteries.

Various authorities have singled out dietary components, especially salt, as the chief villains in the high blood pressure story. They point to people who live in areas where processed food is seldom if ever eaten and where high blood pressure is likewise low to prove that diet must be the culprit.

The problem is that these arguments are mostly theoretical, and with a few notable exceptions, which we will soon get to, there is no overwhelming evidence that adding or subtracting one or two items in the typical Western diet can bring about permanent remission of high blood pressure.

Rather, the whole pattern of Western eating—heavy use of salt and sugar, heavy meat consumption, copious alcohol, daily consumption of processed foods in which natural trace mineral balances have been disrupted—seems to set the stage for the emergence of hypertension as a major health threat.

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Tags: high blood pressure