High blood pressure and multivitamins

RedSierra

I've been baffled by high blood pressure for the past few months.

My blood pressure has always been in the normal range except when I gained weight. But I'm a normal weight now. I lost 40 pounds using MFP and have maintained for almost a year.

I did all the recommended things to lower my BP: reducing sodium, drinking more water, and exercising every day. I've had a recent EKG and it was normal.

For what it's worth, I googled high blood pressure and multivitamins. I started taking a multivitamin a few months ago, about the time my blood pressure went up.

My google search turned up conflicting info -- some reports said that the extra Vitamin E in multivitamins can make your blood pressure go up, while other reports say the exact opposite. The Vitamin E in my multivitamin is 167% of the required daily amount.

Out of curiosity, I stopped taking the multivitamin. My blood pressure has gone back to normal for the first time in months.

I'm putting this out there in case anybody else is struggling with the same problem.

Aerona85

Interesting. I will have to look into this further. My doctor recommends I take a multi-vitamin and a baby asprin every day. But I am also not sure I trust them for nutrition advice :-).

jgnatca

I read that Niacin is good (I forget why) and I developed hives. Sure enough, a known side effect. I dropped the Niacin.

I still take a multivitamin to take care of a known mal-absorption problem.

MichelleSilverleaf

Another good reason not to take vitamins or supplements unless your doc says you need one.

RedSierra

MichelleSilverleaf wrote: »

Another good reason not to take vitamins or supplements unless your doc says you need one.

I started to take the multivitamin because I had borderline low Vitamin D on a blood test. It wasn't low enough for treatment with supplements the doctor would give, but was very near.

I began eating more Vit D fortified food, getting outdoors at least 15 minutes a day -- and started a multivitamin, all of which I discussed with my doctor and which he approved. I think he's ignorant about a lot of things, to be honest.

The multivitamin was the mistake. I only should have taken a Vitamin D supplement.

Old_Cat_Lady

Any other supplements you could have been taking during the last few months? Such as herbal teas? Ginkgo or ginseng? Any prescriptions (starting/stopping)?
Have you started drinking coffee/tea?
Are you taking your blood pressure in a new machine? Did you change batteries in the bp machine recently and could be getting more accurate readings?
If you took blood pressure at doctors office, could it have been at different times of day? Was traffic bad when the bp was high? Any stressful event during that time?
If you don't have a bp cuff, go buy one at the store. I love mine. I jot it down on a notebook daily with notes on my exercise. (exercise makes it go up for hours). Have you been exercising lately?
The amount of VitE is so small in a multi. It's barely the minimum. How high is your blood pressure? It also increases with age naturally. VitE supplements, stand alone, come in 1,200% of RDA. Maybe numbers that high could raise blood pressure.

Keep working in trying to figure out what did this. It could possibly be something else that needs to be figured out. High blood pressure can be a serious problem.

RedSierra

TheWJordinWJordin wrote: »

Any other supplements you could have been taking during the last few months? Such as herbal teas? Ginkgo or ginseng? Any prescriptions (starting/stopping)?
Have you started drinking coffee/tea?
Are you taking your blood pressure in a new machine? Did you change batteries in the bp machine recently and could be getting more accurate readings?
If you took blood pressure at doctors office, could it have been at different times of day? Was traffic bad when the bp was high? Any stressful event during that time?
If you don't have a bp cuff, go buy one at the store. I love mine. I jot it down on a notebook daily with notes on my exercise. (exercise makes it go up for hours). Have you been exercising lately?
The amount of VitE is so small in a multi. It's barely the minimum. How high is your blood pressure? It also increases with age naturally. VitE supplements, stand alone, come in 1,200% of RDA. Maybe numbers that high could raise blood pressure.

Keep working in trying to figure out what did this. It could possibly be something else that needs to be figured out. High blood pressure can be a serious problem.

I agree, it's a mystery. However, over the past week, since I stopped the multivitamin, my BP has gone down to normal. Yesterday I went for an annual checkup for an unrelated issue and my BP was 121/74. It's been running between 140-160/80-90 until I stopped the multivitamin. Before the multivitamin, my BP was 120-something/70-80 something.

No ginseng or gingko. I read ginseng and licorice can raise your BP. I mostly drink water and on a rare occasion drink Celestial Seasons Sleepytime tea, an herb tea that I don't think has anything that affects BP (rare means a couple of times a month, not daily). The box says it has chamomile, spearmint, lemongrass, tilia flowers, blackberry leaves, orange blossoms, hawthorn and rosebuds. I will admit I have not looked up each of these items, but since I only drink it a couple of times a month I don't see how it could be a factor.

I exercise every morning and have done so for over a year. I walk, jog, and use the elliptical. No big changes. I don't check it after exercise.

No caffeine. I've become sensitive to caffeine and had to go to the emergency room a few months ago because it made my BP so high. I cut all caffeine (including decaf) out of my diet many weeks ago. My BP went down a little after I cut the caffeine, but not down to normal where it's always been.

No big stressful events, no anxiety/stress about traffic before checking my BP.

My BP has been checked many times over the past few months at the hospital and the doctor's office. The doctor had me come in for BP checks. They would check it twice, when I first came in and then after sitting quietly for 15 minutes.

Meds and supplements: I take a low dose statin for cholesterol that I've been on for a year. No other supplements, vitamins, aspirin, or meds of any kind.

The only difference I can see is the multivitamin.

I googled BP and multivitamins, as I said above, and read many conflicting things. One thing that stuck with me was a person similar to myself who posted years ago on a forum and said his BP had "skyrocketed" after he started a multivitamin. I am guessing they affect some people more than others.

Old_Cat_Lady

Walmart blood pressure cuff: https://www.walmart.com/c/ep/blood-pressure-cuffs Spend at the very least $40 or you will eventually buy a better one. Use name brand good batteries. A good investment. Make a note of foods that contain high amounts of VitE such as almonds, spinach, sweet potatoes, avocados, wheatgerm, seeds, etc. Wish you well.
Track bp in a notebook (am/pm notation) and expect a doctor to review it in case this comes back.

RedSierra

TheWJordinWJordin wrote: »

Just do it. Walmart blood pressure cuff: https://www.walmart.com/c/ep/blood-pressure-cuffs Spend at the very least $40 or you will eventually buy a better one. Use name brand good batteries. A good investment. Make a note of foods that contain high amounts of VitE such as almonds, spinach, sweet potatoes, avocados, wheatgerm, seeds, etc. Wish you well.

That's a good idea about the food list. I eat almonds and spinach salads every day. You're right about the BP cuff, but I will have to drag myself kicking and screaming to buy one. I'm a widow who took care of my very ill late husband for many years and at this point I have an aversion to anything medical. However, I will do it.

xvolution

According to a study done for reducing leg cramps in patients requiring hemodialysis, vitamin E significantly reduces the amount of leg cramps caused by treatments (68% reduction). Leg cramps during HD are caused by draining too much water from the muscles during treatment, so it seems that high doses of vitamin E can help prevent that water from being pulled out too quickly.

Just an opinion on my part, but if that's true then the reverse might also be true (slowing down the absorption of water from the blood into surrounding tissue). High blood pressure is generally an excess of fluids in the blood. Though if that's true, then a high BP caused by too much vitamin E would only be temporary.

EDIT: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19829096 Adding the link to that study.

sllm1

Interesting - there are some multivitamins which contain caffeine, so it makes me wonder if you took one of those since you are so sensitive to caffeine.

Old_Cat_Lady

On that notebook, also track sodium in your diet. My husband is one of those people that are affected by it (high blood pressure). Did you eat fast food before one doctors appointment and not at the other? Alcohol also raises his numbers. Yea, it's time to bust the wallet open for that bp cuff.

Old_Cat_Lady

@sllm1 I have never seen a multivitamin contain caffeine. *I buy my multivitamin at walmart. Plain ol' Equate Womens.

sllm1

@TheWJordinWJordin
One-a-Day Energy
One-a-Day Active Metabolism

Old_Cat_Lady

Excellent point. And you were not taking Centrum womens reg since it's only 117% of RDA, or One a day reg women's 50+ which is only 100% of RDA in vitE.

BrianSharpe

Something else that is frequently ignored by doctors when discussing blood pressure is potassium. If you check the American Heart Assoc website as well as Heart & Stroke in Canada and their UK counterparts you'll see that the RDA for potassium is around 4,700mg daily, something very few people seem to be aware of (apparently research suggests that the ratio of potassium to sodium is almost as important as that actual amount of sodium by itself).

When I started monitoring my potassium intake (along with sodium & regular exercise) my numbers went down significantly.

RedSierra

TheWJordinWJordin wrote: »

On that notebook, also track sodium in your diet. My husband is one of those people that are affected by it (high blood pressure). Did you eat fast food before one doctors appointment and not at the other? Alcohol also raises his numbers. Yea, it's time to bust the wallet open for that bp cuff.

I drink alcohol about once every two years, so that's out.

Nope, no fast food. I very rarely eat it plus watch salad dressings, read labels and eat a lot of whole food. I also read in some study somewhere that people who had the best blood pressure were not very low on sodium either, but somewhere in the middle (I did not save links -- I was reading just for myself plus read a lot of contradictory info). I try to keep my sodium below 1500 mg a day.

RedSierra

BrianSharpe wrote: »

Something else that is frequently ignored by doctors when discussing blood pressure is potassium. If you check the American Heart Assoc website as well as Heart & Stroke in Canada and their UK counterparts you'll see that the RDA for potassium is around 4,700mg daily, something very few people seem to be aware of (apparently research suggests that the ratio of potassium to sodium is almost as important as that actual amount of sodium by itself).

When I started monitoring my potassium intake (along with sodium & regular exercise) my numbers went down significantly.

That's a good point about potassium. I'm tracking it here on MFP. I added a banana a day, even though I don't care for them. I eat a lot of lentils and vegetables. I rarely hit 4700 mg a day but come close.

RedSierra

xvolution wrote: »

According to a study done for reducing leg cramps in patients requiring hemodialysis, vitamin E significantly reduces the amount of leg cramps caused by treatments (68% reduction). Leg cramps during HD are caused by draining too much water from the muscles during treatment, so it seems that high doses of vitamin E can help prevent that water from being pulled out too quickly.

Just an opinion on my part, but if that's true then the reverse might also be true (slowing down the absorption of water from the blood into surrounding tissue). High blood pressure is generally an excess of fluids in the blood. Though if that's true, then a high BP caused by too much vitamin E would only be temporary.

EDIT: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19829096 Adding the link to that study.

That's interesting. I see your point about the possible fluid connection. Thanks for the link.

omerfkhan

RedSierra wrote: »

I've been baffled by high blood pressure for the past few months.

My blood pressure has always been in the normal range except when I gained weight. But I'm a normal weight now. I lost 40 pounds using MFP and have maintained for almost a year.

I did all the recommended things to lower my BP: reducing sodium, drinking more water, and exercising every day. I've had a recent EKG and it was normal.

For what it's worth, I googled high blood pressure and multivitamins. I started taking a multivitamin a few months ago, about the time my blood pressure went up.

My google search turned up conflicting info -- some reports said that the extra Vitamin E in multivitamins can make your blood pressure go up, while other reports say the exact opposite. The Vitamin E in my multivitamin is 167% of the required daily amount.

Out of curiosity, I stopped taking the multivitamin. My blood pressure has gone back to normal for the first time in months.

I'm putting this out there in case anybody else is struggling with the same problem.

Use this recipe and your blood pressure will always remain normal and you will have lots of other health benefits

https://docs.google.com/document/d/19G7a8iSpQmD5XgXzXCIfe1YvS5rQQQ5jT6G67YeGyaY/edit?usp=sharing