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 All Thumbs Book Reviews
The High Blood Pressure Hoax
By Sherry A. Rogers, MD
Sand Key Company, 2005
Reviewed by Katherine Czapp
The first thing to understand about The High Blood Pressure Hoax
is that author Sherry Rogers considers hypertension itself to be no
hoax at all, but a very real and serious symptom of vascular dysfunction
that can be associated with numerous illnesses such as diabetes, heart
disease and Alzheimer's. As a marker of something out of balance in
the body, high blood pressure is not to be ignored, Dr. Rogers emphasizes,
and in fact she completely endorses, the recently recalibrated "normal"
blood pressure reading of 120/70 along with the new symptom designation
of "prehypertension"--also known as the not-long-ago "normal"
measurement of 140/90.
On this point of raising the alarm with regard to blood pressure readings,
Dr. Rogers temporarily parts company with a number of thoughtful physicians,
both old school and of alternative persuasions. Dr. William Campbell
Douglass, for example, provides good arguments for leaving moderate
hypertension alone, noting that in the absence of other symptoms, untreated
hypertension may be of little concern, while treatment with the known
classes of antihypertensive drugs inevitably results in serious health-damaging
side effects that tend to worsen the longer treatment continues. Even
with drug management, fully half of those with high blood pressure still
cannot control it, all the while feeling worse while on the drugs.
Dr. Tom Cowan, in his book The Fourfold Path to Healing,
outlines an approach to normalizing blood pressure through diet, supplements
and movement plus meditation. His take on blood pressure readings is
similar to Dr. William Campbell Douglass's in that both recall being
taught in medical school that normal blood pressure was the person's
age plus 100 over 90; a tenet that would be considered irresponsible
in modern practice. However, keeping calm about these numbers can go
a long way toward reducing hypertension in the patient, or reader, since
it is clear that the real impetus for the recalibrating of "normal"
blood pressure is to instantly create more customers for the pharmaceutical
companies.
But don't misunderstand: Dr. Rogers is fully aware that drug companies
are cold-blooded pushers of their wares and not to be trusted with patient
health and welfare. Further, she does not consider high blood pressure
to be a disease in itself, and decries the current medical trend to
treat it as such and to aggressively medicate the condition without
understanding its presence in relation to the overall health of the
individual struggling with it. She describes the mechanisms of each
of the major classes of antihypertensive drugs and their damaging effects
on the body, usually worsening the very condition they are meant to
help, while putting the person taking them at greater risk of cardiovascular
and other diseases. These drugs make "the sick get sicker quicker,"
she repeatedly warns.
Dr. Rogers has over 35 years of experience as a doctor of environmental
medicine, and views human health from a perspective of diminishing nutrition
coupled with ever-growing toxic burdens from the countless poisons in
our water, food and air. Because she considers most Americans at risk
for being undernourished and overly toxic--not at all an unrealistic
conclusion--this may be the reason for her acceptance of the lower
"normal" blood pressure readings in persons younger than
70. (Dr. Rogers acknowledges that dizziness, weakness and brain fog
often result from lowering blood pressure too much for those past 70.)
In other words, it is most prudent to act at the first sign of disharmony
in the body as worse things may be afoot. But please, Dr. Rogers urges,
don't think you have only pharmaceuticals as a solution.
The bulk of The High Blood Pressure Hoax is a compilation
of strategies Dr. Rogers feels can provide real answers for those seeking
to normalize their blood pressure naturally. Some of her pointers are
very basic, but nevertheless usually overlooked approaches, such as
testing for potassium and magnesium levels in the red blood cells. Deficiencies
of these two minerals--common among Americans--can cause hypertension
in certain people, and yet medications that include diuretics (often
the first class of antihypertensive drugs to be prescribed) actually
cause these very minerals to be lost in the urine, creating even higher
blood pressure and the inevitable prescribing of more drugs. Dr. Rogers
directs the reader to the exact type of blood test to have the doctor
order to reveal accurate mineral levels, warns of what to avoid, and
then recommends reputable sources for supplementation. Each of her chapters
is accompanied by a reference section to collaborative studies, as well
as to labs and resources to equip readers to help themselves.
Dr. Rogers briefly explains several mechanisms of normal blood pressure
regulation and the many conditions that may arise in the body to confound
this self-regulatory process as well as recommendations to correct the
condition, usually through supplementation with nutrients.
Dr. Rogers strongly recommends an "oil change" as a first
line of defense, directing the reader to avoid trans fats,
as well as hydrogenated, polyunsaturated and fake fats such as Olestra.
She recommends coconut butter and cod liver oil as repair oils, explaining
that cell membranes must be made of healthy fats for proper intercommunication
to proceed at the cellular level. Trans fats and rancid, toxic
vegetable oils damage the cells that house the calcium and potassium
channels and can cause hypertension as one result; cod liver oil can
repair this damage, along with a complete avoidance of the damaging
fats. Dr. Rogers further notes that since some high blood pressure can
be the result of "silent" viral or bacterial infection of
the blood vessels, coconut butter, with its high monolaurin content
which disarms viral cell membranes, is the safest response to those
infections.
Dr. Rogers's other main dietary caveat concerns the connection between
insulin levels and hypertension, and the consumption of sugar and refined
grain products, which she calls "serial killers." Most of
the crackers, cold breakfast cereals and other refined carbohydrate
products also contain damaged oils, and so avoiding them is of course
doubly rewarding. Get off dead, devitalized foods, Dr. Rogers exhorts,
and replace them with whole foods, recently alive. In Dr. Rogers's book,
this means eating a great deal of raw vegetables, including hard-to-digest
raw mushrooms and cruciferous vegetables, as well as nuts, which Dr.
Rogers recommends you soak overnight along with, say, some raw buckwheat
groats and eat for breakfast with yogurt and fruit. If you find this
difficult to stomach, you are directed to heal your gut and then try
again. Of course not everyone is going to find her "bird seed cereal"
appealing or digestible, and not necessarily because of a compromised
gastrointestinal tract. Dr. Rogers does not elaborate much on careful
nut and seed preparation or at all on other foods that require some
time for proper preparation so that they are best assimilated. She often
refers readers to her earlier books, where these directions perhaps
might be found. Although she recommends nutrient-dense foods such as
eggs, cheese, kefir, and non-farmed fish and chicken, she never mentions
butter, organ meats, red meats or bone broths as healing and restorative
foods, or as sources of the many nutrients Americans are lacking. She
only makes one reference to saturated fat, and that is to say it's not
any worse than trans fat, which is damning praise at best.
This is unfortunate, since she implicates the roles of declining hormone
levels, vitamin D and CoQ10 deficiencies, and thyroid dysfunction in
causing or exacerbating hypertension--all conditions that can be improved
through a Nourishing Traditions approach to diet and healing.
Dr. Rogers devotes a good deal of her discussion to causes of hypertension
that are related to toxic effects from our environment. These include
poisoned water, heavy metals, phthalate and plastic leaching, fluoride
contamination of food and water supplies, pesticides and so on. The
wide protocol of detoxifying includes everything from far infrared sauna
to oral chelation to bowel cleansing, and may be the most daunting aspect
of her treatment options. Chelation therapy runs the risk of causing
excess mineral depletion and organ stress, and the other detoxification
methods require trained technicians and careful monitoring. It is hard
to deny the fact that mounting toxin loads are health destroyers, and
detoxification procedures such as chelation have turned around some
desperate cases, which may be encouraging to some readers of The
High Blood Pressure Hoax. Providing information on protective dietary
strategies would have been helpful as well, but Dr. Rogers confines
her advice mostly to supplements. She does mention that phthalates (or
plasticizers) make up the heaviest toxic burden in the body, and a metabolic
pathway called glucuronidation is the body's primary means of eliminating
them. Dr. Rogers notes that eating cruciferous vegetables such as cabbage,
arugula and cauliflower contribute nutrients needed to help that pathway
work. Another remedy not mentioned by Dr. Rogers would be regular use
of tea mushroom (kombucha), which recent research has shown inhibits
enzymatic breakdown of glucuronic acid conjugates (waste-escorting molecules)
and thereby speeds waste and toxin removal from the body and increases
the detoxification ability of the liver. An emphasis on other foods--such
as butter--that support and protect liver function would have been helpful
here as well.
The powerful influence of the psyche and emotions on physical health
and therefore on hypertension is touched upon by Dr. Rogers, but her
personal approach to mental and spiritual health, which involves religious
dedication of a sort she acknowledges is not for everyone, makes for
rather limited assistance at best. This is understandable, however,
since in the area of the mind and soul, each person must forge his own
path and grapple in his own way with "the thousand natural shocks
that flesh is heir to."
"The circulation is really the biological field where the soul
lives out its life," writes Dr. Cowan in The Fourfold Path
to Healing, and that concise statement ought to provoke a lot of
thought about the struggles of the mind being reflected in struggles
in the body.
For its mere 250 terse pages, The High Blood Pressure Hoax
packs an enormous amount of information and resources, which will be
welcomed by readers already used to taking full responsibility for their
health, but which can easily overwhelm a less seasoned reader. This
would not be a book to give someone not already fully weaned from the
conventional medical establishment, for example. A drawback of the book's
presentation of information is the sense one has that Dr. Rogers was
dictating the contents as she was running to catch a cab to the airport.
Nevertheless, The High Blood Pressure Hoax does provide many
useful pointers toward multiple drug-free approaches to normalizing
cardiovascular conditions and other related health conditions, and thereby
received a qualified Thumbs Up. By writing this book Dr. Rogers clearly
wanted to put the power and knowledge of healing back into the hands
and heart and spine of the individual, and we can be grateful for her
contribution toward that noble aim.
About the Reviewer
 Katherine Czapp was raised on a three-generation,
self-sufficient mixed family farm in rural Michigan. After studying Russian language
and literature at the University of Michigan, she is gratified to discover that the
skills and experiences of her anachronistic upbringing are useful tools in the 21st
century. She works independently as a three-season organic gardener and WAPF staff
editor. She and her husband Garrick live the slow life in Ann Arbor, Michigan. To
learn more about authentic sourdough bread recipes and to obtain a live culture
starter, visit www.realsourdoughbreadrecipe.com.
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