Fructose Can Cause Your Blood Pressure to Skyrocket
The first thing you need to do is remove all grains and sugars, particularly fructose, from your diet until both your weight and your blood pressure have normalized. Eating sug≠ars and grains — in≠cluding any type of bread, pasta, corn, potatoes, or rice — will cause your insulin levels, and your blood pressure, to remain elevated.
A study published earlier this year discovered that those who consumed 74 grams or more per day of fructose (the equivalent of about 2.5 sugary drinks) had a 77 percent greater risk of having blood pressure levels of 160/100 mmHg. (For comparison, a normal blood pressure reading is below 120/80 mmHg.)
Consuming 74 grams or more of fructose daily also increased the risk of a 135/85 blood pressure reading by 26 percent, and 140/90 by 30 percent.
This is significant because the average American now consumes 70 grams of fructose every day!
Fructose breaks down into a variety of waste products that are bad for your body, one of which is uric acid. Uric acid drives up your blood pressure by inhibiting the nitric oxide in your blood vessels. Nitric oxide helps your vessels maintain their elasticity, so nitric oxide suppression leads to increases in blood pressure.
In fact, 17 out of 17 studies demonstrate that elevated uric acid levels lead to hypertension.
For more information on the connection between fructose/uric acid/hypertension, please see this recent article that reviews it in greater depth.
I’ve also interviewed Dr. Johnson, one of the leading medical researchers in this field, about his research into the health dangers of fructose, specifically how fructose causes health problems such as high blood pressure.