Looks like it's back to keto after my diastolic has gone back up

(B Creighton) #1

Hi all. For those of you who remember me, I recounted in this forum how I got my blood pressure down with K2 and finally the last bit with keto this last winter. Well, I cut back on K2 to about 100 mcg/day of K2 MK-7(previously, I was supplementing with 150 mcg), and quit keto while eating sugary desserts after dinner, but still trying to eat low carb. Well, it’s been about 4-5 months now, and it looks like my diastolic has gone back up. My systolic is still relatively low though ie low 120s to upper 110s.

My question is what is you all’s experience with this? Before beginning keto I felt I had got my blood pressure under control, but my diastolic drop was still trailing my systolic drop. During keto my diastolic dropped about another 10 pts, and finally got back down into the 60s. It has not been professionally read, but looks like it’s back up into the 80s or maybe at best upper 70s. Has anyone seen a depressive effect on diastolic BP with keto? Why a more dramatic effect on diastolic than systolic? I have to say this has me a bit concerned, so I will absolutely go back to strict keto if I need to. Or maybe, I just need to eliminate the sugar? I am currently fairly low carb except for the sugar after my evening meal. I am getting the feeling I am just going to have to basically eliminate the sugar to keep my BP under control as my research indicates excess sugar is a major driver of athlerosclerosis. What is your experience?

BTW my wife is down about 50 lbs now until she temporarily quit keto to prepare for knee surgery, which went well. Her weight loss has stabilized to around 1 - 2 lbs per week. When it slows I advised her to eat more fats, and MCTs seem to pull her back into strong ketosis again. I love MCTs.

(You've tried everything else; why not try bacon?) #2

All I know about diet and blood pressure is that the body needs nitric oxide (NO) to regulate blood pressure. Since the only form of nitrogen the body can make use of is amino acids, that is one of the reasons a certain level of protein intake is essential to our diet. Furthermore, elevated serum insulin interferes with the production of NO, so that’s a good reason to keep carbohydrate intake low.

Another factor in regulating blood pressure is blood volume. Hypovolaemia requires the heart to speed up and thus increase blood pressure in an effort to get enough oxygen circulating through the body. (It is easy for the body to deal with hypervolaemia by increasing urinary output.)

A ketogenic diet lowers insulin, thus permitting NO to relax arterial walls (hence the effect on diastolic pressure). Getting enough salt and drinking to thirst help regulate blood volume, with an attendant effect on systolic pressure (which is why systolic is more volatile). There are two recent studies that suggest sodium intake in the range of 4-6 g/day (from all sources) is the healthiest range. This helps keep the other electrolytes in control. Drinking to thirst—that is, neither too little nor too much—provides liquid for blood volume. It is important not to over-hydrate (say, by following the recommendations of sports drink manufacturers, who have a vested interest in getting you to buy as much of their product as possible, after all), because that runs the risk of depleting electrolytes.

As for my experience, my blood pressure started out in the neighbourhood of 140/90, and a year after I started a keto diet, it was 112/70, which I understand to be smack dab in the middle of the normal range.

The consumption of sugar and seed-oils (canola, corn, soybean, cottonseed, and the like) has indeed been implicated in the epidemics of diabetes and cardiovascular disease. But I suspect that refined grains and starches probably share some of the blame. Sugar is bad, not so much because of the glucose, unless you are eating enough of it to seriously increase your serum glucose, but because of the damage an excessive amount of fructose does to the liver (remember that 1 sucrose = 1 glucose + 1 fructose). Elevated serum glucose is another factor in cardiovascular risk, because of its glycating effect on haemoglobin, which makes the blood likelier to clot. Fructose has no effect on insulin secretion, and it seems to be implicated primarily in causing fatty liver disease.

If you’d like a further analysis of your health status, I’d want to take a look at your inflammatory markers (such as CRP, ferritin, WBC, and the like), your HbA1C, and your ratio of triglycerides to HDL. It wouldn’t hurt to also see what your liver enzymes (ALT and ALS) are doing.

(Rebecca ) #3

Wow…just…WOW! Paul, you have so much knowledge!! Thank you!