When blood pressure is elevated, there are safe, natural ways to lower it.

For example, an extract from the hawthorn plant is effective in lowering mild to moderate hypertension, as well as relieving mild and moderate heart failure.

Hawthorn leaves and flowers contain abundant, powerful antioxidants such as oligomeric proanthocyanidins (OPCs), which are also known to strengthen blood vessels.

This helps prevent rupture, which occurs with hypertensive hemorrhages of the brain, skin, eyes, and other organs.

The advantage of hawthorn is that it not only lowers blood pressure (by dilating the vessels), but at the same time it makes the heart muscle stronger.

In addition, its powerful antioxidants help protect the walls of the major blood vessels from lipid peroxidation damage, which occurs when fats oxidize and cause inflammation to tissues.

High blood pressure damages arteries by causing the generation of high levels of free radicals and lipid peroxidation products in the inner lining and muscle layer of arteries.

Anti-hypertensive drugs do nothing to reduce free-radical damage directly.

One should be careful about mixing hawthorn extract with certain drugs. The most common interaction can make the medication work like an overdose, meaning it could even make the medication toxic.

In most studies involving patients with difficult-to-control blood pressure, the dosages of conventional drugs were significantly lowered when they were given hawthorn extract.

Personally, I remember one gentleman coming to me for something to control his very high blood pressure, which remained uncontrolled even after his doctors put him on a mixture of antihypertensive medications.

I suggested hawthorn extract along with reduced doses of his medications. He returned in two weeks and told me that for the first time in 10 years his blood pressure was normal.

Like all other natural treatments, hawthorn extract should only be taken with the help and consultation of a trained nutritional physician or certified clinical nutritionist.