Had a stroke in July due to blood pressure

[Dan Druff]

Druff have you watched any of the videos in this thread? Your belief that blood pressure is almost entirely hereditary is incorrect. It's old school thinking that is rapidly changing. Your gene expression is impacted by life style.

Have you or any of your parents or grandparents ever attempted a very healthy lifestyle? I can look at you and know for a fact you eat like shit. I'd also be willing to make a bet, up to $1000 that your own personal blood pressure would improve if you adopted a low sodium, zero sugar diet, exercised a bit and ate a lot of fresh vegetables, fruit and healthy fats. I think there are ways a bet like this could be managed, even starting with a set weight loss number.

I know this because I changed mine dramatically and studies are conclusively proving it to be true. It's totally correct that you are born with a certain set of genetic traits but how your genes express themselves can be lifestyle dependent. Read up on epigenetics and the influence we have on gene expression.

The first paragraph in this study explains that you're incorrect.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4848907/

Copy and paste below from conclusions.

6. Conclusions
We are entering a new era of understanding how the genome interacts with the environment to affect disease pathogenesis. There is now emerging evidence that epigenetic, as well as genetic, factors are key players in regulating and maintaining blood pressure, and strong evidence for a complex interaction of genetic and environmental factors that influence the risk of HT in each individual

It's actually not old school thinking. The old school thinking was that you need to obsessively watch your diet in order to prevent high blood pressure and high cholesterol.

I still see 1970s All in the Family episodes where Edith tells Archie he can't have salt because his blood pressure will go up.

The conclusion you pasted above does not contradict my point. Rather, it seems to be making the case that there's a "complex interaction of genetic and environmental factors" increasing the risk of hypertension. So it seems to be saying that they now theorize that certain people are predisposed to high blood pressure by genetics, but some of those people can keep it down through lifestyle/diet changes.

However, I have enough anecdotal evidence from people I know personally to say that it's often not the case. I know people who have horrible diets and have normal blood pressure (Master Scalir is a good example), and others who have great diets and other healthy lifestyle choices, yet have very high blood pressure (before medication).

In fact, among people I know, I have seen zero correlation between lifestyle/diet and blood pressure. Aside from the obvious age factor, it otherwise seems almost random to me. If you presented me with 20 people I knew fairly well (but had no info about their blood pressure), I wouldn't be able to guess who had high, marginal, or normal blood pressure.

[peter mcneil]

Read the study and watch the video, you're wrong. There isn't a chance you've done either and I doubt right now you even know what epigenetics are. I think one of your personality blind spots is too much confidence in your own beliefs. You aren't an expert on this topic and neither am I. We should defer to the leading experts conducting the most current studies, shouldn't we? What you're saying in this thread has been shown incorrect over and over through the most recent studies on epigenetics but you refuse to concede you could be wrong. Even when the top experts in the field are telling you that you are wrong.

Your example of knowing people who eat the same but have different blood pressures is a given based on our hard line DNA. Had you read the link I provided or watched mumbles video you would understand that you can alter it and alter it much more than ever thought. Take the time to read the links on epigenetics and watch the video, you'll learn something on an important subject. Not just for you but for your family as well.

[Dan Druff]

Have you or any of your parents or grandparents ever attempted a very healthy lifestyle?

My father changed much about his lifestyle around 1980, cutting down on fat consumption, running 6-10 miles per day, and decreasing alcohol consumption. He never had a drinking problem, but he went from a nightly mug of beer to just the occasional drink. He even ran marathons starting around age 40, and continued for about 10 years, and then kept running 6-10 miles per day through his 50s and 60s.

He's now in his mid-70s, and while his age has slowed him down somewhat, and he's replaced a lot of the running with biking, he's still very active and remarkably healthy for his age. He even goes skiing with me in the winter. His genetics are not very good. No one else in his family made it past 73, and only one person in his family made it to 70.

However, despite all this, he still has high cholesterol and high blood pressure -- both of which are controlled by medication, thankfully. Neither of these improved at all after his lifestyle changes, which saw him lose a lot of weight and overall became a lot healthier. But the blood pressure and cholesterol did not improve until he took medication for them.

In fact, while my father was in his marathon years when he was my exact age, my blood pressure is about equivalent to his at that time, and my cholesterol is substantially better.

[lol wow]

GET EM TOADGE

[Dan Druff]

Read the study and watch the video, you're wrong. There isn't a chance you've done either and I doubt right now you even know what epigenetics are. I think one of your personality blind spots is too much confidence in your own beliefs. You aren't an expert on this topic and neither am I. We should defer to the leading experts conducting the most current studies, shouldn't we? What you're saying in this thread has been shown incorrect over and over through the most recent studies on epigenetics but you refuse to concede you could be wrong. Even when the top experts in the field are telling you that you are wrong.

Your example of knowing people who eat the same but have different blood pressures is a given based on our hard line DNA. Had you read the link I provided or watched mumbles video you would understand that you can alter it and alter it much more than ever thought. Take the time to read the links on epigenetics and watch the video, you'll learn something on an important subject. Not just for you but for your family as well.

Let's say I gave you a list of 100 people, all aged 40, with details on each regarding their diet, exercise, and stress level.

Then I ask you to mark next to each of them "High", "Marginal", or "Normal" regarding their blood pressure.

How many of those 100 do you think you'd get right?

[peter mcneil]

Druff, you're impossibly stubborn.

http://www.ohsu.edu/xd/education/sch...rnburg-bio.cfm

That man says you're incorrect, he has spent a life studying this topic. All the current science says you're wrong but you refuse to budge because of a few family stories and some anecdotal evidence. Read the article I passed along on epigenetics. Until you do the debate is impossible because you don't even understand the topic.

[lol wow]

TBONE YOU HAVE LIKE 8 YEARS TO LIVE

[peter mcneil]

Read the study and watch the video, you're wrong. There isn't a chance you've done either and I doubt right now you even know what epigenetics are. I think one of your personality blind spots is too much confidence in your own beliefs. You aren't an expert on this topic and neither am I. We should defer to the leading experts conducting the most current studies, shouldn't we? What you're saying in this thread has been shown incorrect over and over through the most recent studies on epigenetics but you refuse to concede you could be wrong. Even when the top experts in the field are telling you that you are wrong.

Your example of knowing people who eat the same but have different blood pressures is a given based on our hard line DNA. Had you read the link I provided or watched mumbles video you would understand that you can alter it and alter it much more than ever thought. Take the time to read the links on epigenetics and watch the video, you'll learn something on an important subject. Not just for you but for your family as well.

Let's say I gave you a list of 100 people, all aged 40, with details on each regarding their diet, exercise, and stress level.

Then I ask you to mark next to each of them "High", "Marginal", or "Normal" regarding their blood pressure.

How many of those 100 do you think you'd get right?

Not one, because I have no clue what their baseline DNA is. What I'm saying and what very current expert who spends their lives studying this are learning is that epigenetics has a large impact on gene expression thus whatever you baseline DNA is can be improved. That's it.

Answer one question, have you read anything in depth on epigenetics? Do you know what it is?

[Dan Druff]

Anyway, this thread has scared me into going and finding another doctor and getting some BP meds which work.

That scam doctor's office I went to in February prescribed me some meds which work for my brother, but were ineffective for me (they literally did nothing).

Thanks to shitty Obamacare making very few doctors available to me (at least ones which take new patients), I didn't bother going to find a new doctor to try other meds. So I'm still sitting on a 152/92 type BP, which while not immediately dangerous, is not good to be sitting with in the long or medium-term.

So I'm going to bear down this week and find a place, and get some different medication for it.

[lol wow]

lol

[Dan Druff]

lol

Skatz Admin forum pretty dead tonight, huh?

[lol wow]

lets not throw daggers breh

[peter mcneil]

Anyway, this thread has scared me into going and finding another doctor and getting some BP meds which work.

That scam doctor's office I went to in February prescribed me some meds which work for my brother, but were ineffective for me (they literally did nothing).

Thanks to shitty Obamacare making very few doctors available to me (at least ones which take new patients), I didn't bother going to find a new doctor to try other meds. So I'm still sitting on a 152/92 type BP, which while not immediately dangerous, is not good to be sitting with in the long or medium-term.

So I'm going to bear down this week and find a place, and get some different medication for it.

Why not devote a year to your health and see what happens? What do you have to lose? Drop 50lbs, clean up the diet and as mentioned I'm certain your blood pressure will improve. As long as we are talking anecdotal evidence...As soon as I made those changes personally 5 years ago my blood pressure and cholesterol improved dramatically. I'm tempted to put up some before and after pics but I don't understand how doxxing works and I don't want some forum nut case coming after me.

[Dan Druff]

Anyway, this thread has scared me into going and finding another doctor and getting some BP meds which work.

That scam doctor's office I went to in February prescribed me some meds which work for my brother, but were ineffective for me (they literally did nothing).

Thanks to shitty Obamacare making very few doctors available to me (at least ones which take new patients), I didn't bother going to find a new doctor to try other meds. So I'm still sitting on a 152/92 type BP, which while not immediately dangerous, is not good to be sitting with in the long or medium-term.

So I'm going to bear down this week and find a place, and get some different medication for it.

Why not devote a year to your health and see what happens? What do you have to lose? Drop 50lbs, clean up the diet and as mentioned I'm certain your blood pressure will improve. As long as we are talking anecdotal evidence...As soon as I made those changes personally 5 years ago my blood pressure and cholesterol improved dramatically. I'm tempted to put up some before and after pics but I don't understand how doxxing works and I don't want some forum nut case coming after me.

You can send me privately, if you want.

I lost 24 pounds in early 2013. My motivation came from a single picture in late December 2012, with Penn Gillette after his show at Rio. I looked fatter than ever in that picture (because I was), and I was disgusted by it. So I made various diet changes to attempt to bring my weight down. I cut down to one high-calorie drink (orange juice or Pepsi/Coke) per day, and drank water the rest of the time. I stopped eating candy. I stopped eating snacks late at night.

My weight started to fall, and within 2 1/2 months, I had dropped 24 pounds. I was trying to lose about 40. Never got there. My body fought the further weight loss, and stuck at that weight.

I got frustrated, and started to slip after awhile. I'm still not back to my December 2012 weight, but I'm only about 7 pounds below it. I do drink a lot more water than I used to, and a lot less Pepsi/OJ.

Anyway, dropping 40 pounds isn't going to happen for me, unless I do some extreme stuff which will make me otherwise very unhappy/uncomfortable.

I wouldn't want to lose more than 40 at this point, as I would look too thin.

[peter mcneil]

I don't think you're interested in getting healthier and that's fair. I think the longer a person gets pleasure from activities like eating sugar, alcohol or drugs the harder it becomes to make changes. At a certain point you can't be happy making those changes, perhaps you're at that point and I think it would also explain you digging in seemingly to an irrational degree in this thread to defend that you can't improve blood pressure. You don't want to make those changes and the idea that a better lifestyle could make them bums you out. That means you'd lose something you've gained significant pleasure from for a long time.

I played pro tennis at 172lbs, 5'11". After I quit and got into a heavy drinking and gambling lifestyle I slowly put on 75lbs. 5 years ago I peaked out at 247lbs. I dropped down to 185 in 6 months after making significant and abrupt changes. I now walk around at 165lbs and I've been at this weight for 3.5 years. For me the benefits outweigh the negatives by a pretty large margin (there are definitely things I miss about the old life). This debate has probably run its course.

I'm mainly interested to see if cmoney can cut the booze out for a few weeks. I'm rooting for him and looking forward to updates.

[lol wow]

[lol wow]

cant stop wont stop

[MumblesBadly]

Recently listened to a very interesting episode of Freakonomics podcast regarding how to effectively set goals and commit to achieve them. Anyone thinking about taking on a personal improvement challenge might want to give it a listen.

Big Returns from Thinking Small
http://freakonomics.com/podcast/big-...hinking-small/

And here is the conclusion if you don't yet want to commit to listening/reviewing the whole thing.

DUBNER: Look, I love the work that you’re involved in and I find it exciting and I think it’s revolutionary, frankly. That said, a lot of the solutions that have been proposed — that social science researchers come up with and that you then integrate — many of them strike me as essentially common sense. If you want to accomplish this behavior, you need to make some kind of commitment device, or if you want to tackle a big, broad, complex abstract problem, you need to think small and take small steps. Talk about the degree to which you’re not merely like a lot of academia does, canonizes or makes formal what people in the real world have known for millennia.

GALLAGHER: I think you’re right. We see this as applied common sense, but unfortunately it isn’t applied anywhere near commonly enough. Many people recognize the sorts of tools. But what this tries to do is help systematize that so they can apply it routinely in everyday life. And to take one of your examples around commitment devices — I mean I’m not sure people do realize how powerful they can be and often they get them wrong.

So just telling someone that you want to do something, people might see that as a commitment device. “I want to recycle more.” “I want to write a novel.” And just saying that publicly is my form of commitment device to the fact I’m going to follow through. If you do it in that very vague and open and public way, actually that has no effect at all and can actually backfire because you get a bit of a warm glow just by telling people of your good intentions. So in order for a commitment device to be effective, you need to make it specific. You need to write it down and make it accountable with a referee. So those small details can make all of the world of difference between people thinking they’re using these tools and actually potentially backfiring and using them in the way that they’re intended and having the outcomes that we want.

[peter mcneil]

Good stuff there mumbles. Having this kid a few days ago has me desperate to ramp up my business. I'm going to give that a listen. Still a lot of changes I can make that will take work to get my company where I want it to be.

[J Sousa]

Well since we are all getting old. I am a male at above average height and was around 175 pounds almost 8 years ago. I dropped my weight to 135 pounds and never felt better. I am now in the upper 140's. My weight even in the 170's, 160's was not healthy for me. I am now stronger than I have ever been and have more energy.