A woman in the UK cured her high blood pressure naturally, in a case study published not from any university, but a simple online journal.

She wanted, with the help of her doctor, to see what changing her diet would do to her blood pressure levels. Her target for the study was one ingredient and one ingredient only.

Most scientific studies take years and many thousands of dollars to complete, but a Brit named Angela Levin managed to prove that eliminating processed foods can mean the difference in as much as 20 points for systolic blood pressure.

While we have been hearing for years that salt is bad for high blood pressure, the connection to just how much has never really been proven. Primarily because it seems to be a moving target. Too much for one person may be just right for someone else.

We have also been hearing that too much of anything can be a one-way ticket to poor health, whether it is too much sugar, too much fat, too much salt, or even too much water.

Levin’s highest systolic reading during her experiment was 145 and using only food swap methods she was able to get it down to a consistent 118. So why was she able to cure her hypertension and show a difference in her diet experiment of 27 points?

While compelling, her story lacks one key point- that being, eliminating processed foods made the difference, not necessarily eliminating salt.

Her experiment basically had 3 parts.

1) Measure sodium intake on a “normal” diet, meaning what she had always eaten.

2) Then hike up the sodium intake and measure again, noting the changes in health and blood pressure.

3) The third piece was to drastically cut out sodium and measure everything again.

Increasing the salt intake was not difficult at all, primarily because the overwhelming majority of her sodium came from processed foods, with very little fresh food during this time.

Eliminating salt was very difficult…not because of the cravings, though. It was because most processed foods are loaded with it to make it taste good and last longer on the shelf.

Processed food also loses an incredible amount of nutritive value in the processing and storage, a variable which was not controlled for in her study.

At the end of her 6-week journey, however, she noted that eliminating most of the processed foods in her diet, such as canned and dried foods, and replacing those items with fresh or frozen varieties made an enormous difference.

And her blood pressure wasn’t the only improvement. Eliminating the inflammation-causing processed foods also eliminated her lethargy, nausea, and headaches.

Learn about food that cause inflammation and type 2 diabetes here… Learn about food that cause inflammation and contribute to arthritis here…

Eliminating ALL processed and unhealthy food is probably too big of a challenge for most people. For a simpler solution to slash your blood pressure, check out our simple blood pressure exercises here…

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