Posted by Dennis Brinley

Hypertension in African Americans

This is a short Article on the causes of Hypertension in African Americans. If
You have any questions please contact me at DBrinley@aol.com.

African Americans are 40% more likely to suffer from high blood pressure than
are their white counterparts. African Americans are much more likely to suffer
from the effects of high blood pressure than are whites with a 3 times higher
rate for end stage kidney disease than whites, an 80% higher rate of deaths
from stroke, and a 50% higher heart disease rate.

It is important to note that blacks living in Africa seldom suffer from high
blood pressure but in moving to the United States the incidence of hypertension
increases drastically. There has been much debate as to whether this increase
is caused by environmental or dietary factors. I plan to show that the
increased rates of hypertension are caused by dietary factors which are brought
about by environmental changes, and that this should be expected because of the
evolutionary history of African Americans.

First it is important to point out that blacks are not the only ones to
experience problems because of a change in environment when they came to this
country. For instance, many white people living in the United States come from
places like Germany, England and Ireland. If you look at a map of the world you
will note that these countries all are further north than Maine. This means two
things, first is the fact that they get more direct rays from the sun than
their ancestors did, and secondly they do not have to wear as much clothing to
maintain their body temperature as their ancestors did since the temperature in
the United States is usually warmer than it is in northern Europe.

Because Europeans evolved in an area with less intense exposure to the rays of
the sun than there is in the United States they are not equipped to deal with
the solar radiation that they experience here. As a result 1 in 2 white people
will develop skin cancer by the time they are 65. Meanwhile blacks, who are
better suited to handle exposure to the sun are only 1 twentieth as likely as
whites to develop skin cancer. Maybe white people should go back to from whence
they came.

I might also point out that in the summer time white people can often be seen
out sun bathing. It looks as if they are trying to develop skin cancer. You
must have to be stupid to be a white person. Either white people or stupid or
perhaps they realize that sun bathing will increase the amount of melanin in
their skin and as H. Khalif Khalifah wrote in Melanin, Conscious Attunement &
the God in I, melanin helps to make blacks superior to whites.

In order to understand why people suffer from high blood pressure there are two
things that you must know. First, salt consumption has been linked to high
blood pressure, and people with high blood pressure are typically told to limit
their salt intake. Second, salt will dissolve in water, if you put a tablespoon
of salt in a glass of water and stir, the salt will be dissolved. With that
said let me start with a simple example to help to explain the causes and cures
for high blood pressure so that everyone, even those without a medical
background can understand.

It is 6:35 a.m. Saturday morning. I normally wake up at 6:30 and I was planning
to sleep in today but here I am and I have to go to the bathroom. This won't
happen next weekend, next weekend I won't drink anything for at least an hour
before I go to bed and I will be able to sleep.

Now imagine that you are 65 years old, your muscles have atrophied, your joints
ache from arthritis, and it hurts to walk. It even hurts to get up and go to
the bathroom, but then you won't have to go to the bathroom if you don't drink
any water. The elderly frequently limit the amount of water that they drink in
order to reduce the number of trips that they take to the bathroom and as a
result dehydration is one of the ten most common reasons for hospitalization of
Medicare patients.

Another problem occurs when the elderly reduce their consumption of water. All
food contains some salt, and by reducing the amount of water that they drink
they also increase the amount of salt left in their bodies because salt is
removed when we urinate. As you might suspect the preferred way of treating
hypertension in the elderly is to give them a diuretic and then tell them that
they have to drink a lot of water because they are now taking a diuretic. By
doing this the patient then reduces the amount of salt in his body and his
blood pressure is the lowered.

While too little water consumption can lead to high blood pressure we might
expect people who drink a lot of water to have low blood pressure. The most
obvious example of this is the distance runner. Distance runners typically
drink a lot of water and tend to have low pressure. In fact marathon runners
are advised to consume enough salt in the days before a race so that their
blood pressure does not drop so far that they will not be able to finish the
race.

We now have who drink a lot of water eliminate too much salt which results in
them having low blood pressure. People who drink too little water accumulate
too much salt which causes high blood pressure, and finally the standard method
of treating high blood pressure in older Americans is to give them diuretics
which forces them to drink more water which reduces the amount of salt in their
bodies.

Since blacks typically respond well to treatment of hypertension with diuretics
it is reasonable to assume that they typically drink less water than do whites.
Studies have indicated that blacks typically urinate less frequently than due
whites which could account for the lower water consumption among blacks, if you
eliminate less water there less need to drink more water. This tendency for
blacks to urinate less frequently than do whites probably evolved to minimize
the loss of salt and water in the hot environment of the African continent. The
need to eliminate salt through urination is virtually eliminated when a person
loses large amounts of salt through perspiration.

So while blacks typically secrete less salt than do whites living in the United
States they tend to suffer more frequently than do whites from hypertension. On
the plus side, people who urinate frequently also secrete other nutrients such
as calcium and excess calcium loss can lead to osteoporosis. Because blacks
living in America secrete less water than other races they also eliminate less
calcium and so they tend to have denser bones than do other races at all ages.

For treating high blood pressure in blacks the obvious solution is to drink
more water in order to eliminate the build up of salt. Think of it this way.
After a hard exercise program your skin will feel sticky and maybe even a
little itchy so you can wash to get rid of the salt that has dried on your
skin. But what have you done to remove the excess salt from your heart? Have
you washed your heart today? Remember that is much more important to remove the
excess salt from your heart than it is to remove dirt from your skin.

Of course if you increase the amount of water that you drink you may end up
having a bloated feeling from water retention. I would like to suggest 3 ways
to help to get rid of the excess water and also the salt that contributes to
high blood pressure.

The first way to get rid of excess water would be to take diuretics. The
advantage of this method is that is the generally accepted treatment for
hypertension by the medical profession anyway, so why not? On the minus side
people who take diuretics tend to suffer from osteoporosis. The belief is that
since blacks initially have denser bones than due whites that this should not
be a problem, however one can expect that long term use of diuretics will lead
to weaker bones.

The second way to get rid of excess water would be to raise the temperature in
the home. This would not mean a huge increase in temperature but raising the
thermostat from 72 to 80 degrees in the summertime and keeping the thermostat
set at 70 degrees in the winter but wearing a sweater would cause an increase
in perspiration and would increase the amount of water and salt lost in a
manner consistent with the evolutionary past. This method would eliminate the
worry of osteoporosis that the use of diuretics would bring.

Finally my favorite way for reducing water in the body is through exercise.
Exercise has been known to help reduce high blood pressure for a long time, and
the loss of salt through perspiration probably increases the effectiveness of
exercise in reducing hypertension.

Jon Entine points out in the book Why Black Athletes Dominate Sports And Why
We're Afraid To Talk About It that athletes of African descent have
physiological advantages over other athletes. These advantages include higher
muscle oxidative capacity, a higher proportion of fast-twitch muscle fibers,
and a greater capillary-to-muscle fiber ratio. It is little wonder that nearly
all of the top 15 running world running records ranging from 100 meters to the
marathon belong to athletes of African descent. But it has always been true
that with greater ability comes greater responsibility to use those talents, so
we might expect that not only will exercise lower the blood pressure of African
Americans but it will also improve their sense of well being.

The method that you use to control your blood pressure is of course up to you,
but please consider this. There has been much written recently about global
warming and the depletion of the ozone layer, we know that it is happening. We
also know that blacks are better equipped to handle high temperatures and the
sun's rays than are other races. This means that the twenty-first century could
end up being known as the century of the African American, but you won't be
able to enjoy the next 100 years unless you take care of yourself today.

If you have any questions please contact me at DBrinley@aol.com

Sincerely,

Dennis Brinley

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