Is it true that broccoli lowers high blood pressure?

August 30, 2002

Hi Rhio,

Thank you for being faithful to people and by being there for them. I appreciated that you answered me back so fast (you're alright). Could you please sign my book?

Rhio, I have a question. Is it true that broccoli lowers high blood pressure?

Take care, God Bless

Juan

September 4, 2002

Dear Juan,

Thanks for your order and kind note. Your signed book is on the way under separate cover.

I don’t always answer people so promptly, some people are still waiting but their questions are more complicated. I do get to most everyone eventually though.

Here are a few ideas about your question on high blood pressure. Remember that I am just sharing information and ideas. Please consult a health care professional for any health problems.

While I have not heard specifically that broccoli lowers high blood pressure, for most people high blood pressure, over time, will be normalized on the raw food diet.

According to Dr. Johann Schnitzer of Germany, high blood pressure is caused by a high protein diet, and highly processed foods have some complicity too. (This is the diet that is predominant in the US and other westernized countries.) Dr. Schnitzer has helped people overcome many serious health problems, including high blood pressure, over the 4 decades of his practice. He puts his patients on at least 85% raw food. On a raw food diet, a person would consume much less protein and therefore blood pressure would reduce and normalize.

Dr. Schnitzer wrote a book called Hypertension – Causes and Cure. In his book he states "It’s a particular merit of Prof. Dr. Lothar Wendt, who was working at the Elisabethen-Hospital in Frankfurt, to have proven oversupply of protein being the main cause of the pathological alterations of tissues, blood vessels and blood, which lead to hypertension, cardiovascular diseases, deficiency of oxygen in the blood and tissues . . ."

I carry some of Dr. Schnitzer’s books on my website.

So my answer to your question is that while individual foods may have some effect, it’s the overall diet and lifestyle choices that people make that have the greatest impact on high blood pressure.

Dr. Schnitzer goes on to say in his book that high blood pressure is only the body’s intelligent response to protein oversupply. It has to increase the pressure to successfully keep the cardiovascular system flowing.

Oversupply of protein in the system causes several mechanisms to occur which increase the blood pressure. Excess protein causes the walls of the blood vessels and capillaries to thicken and the inside diameter to narrow. The walls (or basic membrane) also harden and become less flexible. Excess protein also causes the blood itself to become thicker and stickier and abnormally high in blood cells in ratio to plasma (the liquid part of the blood). This is called the hematocrit value. According to Dr. Schnitzer, the normal percentage is 37 to 39%.

Narrowed blood vessels and thicker and stickier blood needs greater pressure to push it along. Think of it as water in a hose. A certain amount of pressure is needed to push the water through the hose. But if, instead of water, you have something thick in the hose, like, let’s say oatmeal gruel, and the inside diameter of the hose becomes narrower, then more pressure is needed to push the blood through. Understand.

In order to keep excess protein out of the general circulation (the cardiovascular system), the body will also shunt excess protein into tumors and cysts (storage), all in an effort to keep the cardiovascular system flowing as normally as possible.

I hope that I have shed some light.

With Blessings and Peace,

Rhio

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