Blood pressure medication and treatment can help pancreatic and breast cancer also.

Blood pressure measures the pressure of the blood against the walls of your arteries (large blood vessels) as it is pumped by your heart. If it is too high it puts a strain on your arteries and heart, which increases the likelihood that you will suffer a heart attack, a stroke or kidney disease.

Blood pressure is measured in millimetres of mercury (mmHg) and it is shown as two figures:

Systolic pressure: the pressure of the blood when your heart beats to pump blood out

Diastolic pressure: the pressure of the blood when your heart rests in between beats

For example, if your GP says your blood pressure is '125 over 80', or 125/80mmHg, it means you have a systolic pressure of 125mmHg and a diastolic pressure of 80mmHg.

You are said to have high blood pressure (known as hypertension) if readings on separate occasions consistently show your blood pressure to be 140/90mmHg or higher.

Current medicine offers many drugs to reduce high blood pressure but the causes are many and varied and in all cases you should seek medical advice to determine the cause.

Essential oils can help to reduce the cause or supplement any drug treatment but you must ensure the blood pressure does not drop too low and to that end either visit your GP regularly or invest in a blood pressure machine.

Use the following oils and blend in a 60ml container with either Grapeseed or Argan oil if the skin on the soles of the feet is rough or dry.

Niaouli, lemon, sweet marjoram, Melissa, mandarin,ylang ylang,Lavender, Juniper and Geranium,

Apply to chest and soles of feet and gently massage into the skin until completely adsorbed.

Other natural remedies:

Kombu – Is a sea vegetable used with other vegetables and will help reduce high blood pressure.

Hawthorn – Known and used since Roman times in the first century AD. Will prevent degenerative heart, blood vessel and lung disease. Tests indicate it can help to reverse atherosclerotic plaque deposits. It has the ability to regulate both high and low blood pressure and consequently helps manage angina.

Dose: 250mg 3 times a day. Take care if using other cardiovascular drugs or antidepressants. Drugs of this type do take some time to work so allow up to 3 months to get the full effect.

Dandelion – The leaf extract works very well to promote good cholesterol (HDL) and will help regulate blood pressure. It also provides high levels of vitamin A and heart protecting potassium.

Dose: 500mg 3 times a day. Do not take if you have gallstones or are diabetic as it may reduce the blood glucose levels too far.

L-taurine – This helps relax blood vessels and lowers bad cholesterol levels. In addition it will regulate heart rhythm, maintain cardiac contractions, maintains blood pressure and allow normal blood clotting.

Dose: (congestive heart failure 2-4grams per day) Normal dose 1.5 grams daily.

L-arginine – This amino acid dilates blood vessels and lowers blood pressure. It is used to support angina patients and clinical trials have shown it to lower bad cholesterol.

Dose: 3grams twice a day.

Do not take if you have liver or kidney disease or herpes (it can trigger a virus attack)

Lifeflower – I don’t usually recommend Chinese herbal remedies but this taken in conjunction with a diuretic works well to prevent hypertension. You can obtain them from Victoria Health (www.victoriahealth.com)

Co-enzyme Q10 – Works extremely well but is very expensive as you need a high dose (225mg per day). Trials of over 100 patients showed a significant reduction in other antihypertensive drugs needed.

New research - August 2013

High blood pressure is known to damage other parts of the body. Treating tiny benign tumours in the adrenal glands may prevent huge numbers of cases of high blood pressure.

A study at the University of Cambridge and Addenbrooke's Hospital think that up to 10% of hypertension cases may be caused by the growths which may result in young patients being freed from a lifetime of medication.

It is an "exciting development" the British Heart Foundation said as high blood pressure can have fatal consequences by increasing the risk of heart attacks and stroke.

It's well known that most cases are caused by lifestyle choices such as smoking and diet.

Researchers had already found that large growths in the adrenal glands, which sit on the kidneys and produce hormones, could raise blood pressure.
The normal cure is an operation to remove any tumours which can reduce blood pressure.

Now the researchers in Cambridge have found that much smaller growths, in a different part of the glands, are producing the same effect.

If we study the increase of the amount of aldosterone made in an adrenal gland we find that release of this hormone regulates the kidneys to retain more salt in the body, so increasing blood pressure.

Around 5% of high blood pressure cases result from the large growths, but the researchers argue that the discovery of the small tumours means far more people have preventable blood pressure. Prof Morris Brown said: "We think it could be twice that amount. My guess is around 10%, so it could be as many as one million people in the UK" Long term high blood pressure causes changes in the heart and arteries that mean that operations later in life may not be able to reverse the condition."We can't go looking for the 50 and 60-years-olds, we've missed the boat. We should go looking for the 30-year-olds," said Prof Brown.

Prof Jeremy Pearson, of the British Heart Foundation, said: "It is an exciting development, as this group of patients can be completely cured of high blood pressure once they have been identified, so the quicker they are diagnosed the better."

Blood pressure lowering drugs used in pancreatic and breast cancer - October 2013

The drug Losartan has been prescribed as a blood pressure drug for many years and this commonly used blood pressure drug could help fight cancer by opening up blood vessels in solid tumours.

When used together with conventional cancer-fighting drugs, it may improve life expectancy.

Successful animal testing has found that giving losartan to patients with pancreatic cancer can treat this very difficult disease, Currently, only 5% of pancreatic cancer patients survive for 5 years or more.This is partly because only one in 10 people with the disease has a tumour that is operable.

The clinical trials are being carried out at the Massachusetts General Hospital and they are
currently recruiting volunteer patients with inoperable pancreatic cancer to test out the new drug combination of chemotherapy plus losartan. Although the treatment will not cure them, the researchers hope it will give those patients more months or years of life than they might currently get.

Losartan works by making the blood vessels relax or dilate so that they can carry more blood, easing the pressure. When used in pancreatic and breast cancer it improved blood flow in and around the tumours allowing more of the chemotherapy drugs to be delivered to their target.

The animal tests found that rather than just standard chemotherapy alone, the test animals survived for longer.

Dr Emma Smith of Cancer Research UK commented: "This interesting study in mice
sheds light on why drugs for hypertension might improve the effectiveness of chemotherapy, but we don't yet know if they work exactly the same way in people.The fact that these drugs are already widely used to treat high blood pressure will hopefully cut down the amount of time it will take to test their potential in treating cancer but they may not be safe for all patients or when combined with other cancer treatments, so we need to wait for the answers from clinical trials which are already under way."

If irritation occurs or you suffer any adverse effects such as dizziness then cease use immediately