Question: Can I lower my blood pressure without taking drugs?
Dr. Hibberd's answer:
Blood pressure control is essential to reducing your risk of cardiovascular disease, heart attack, kidney failure, and stroke. Weight management and restricted salt intake — to 2 grams daily — will help some. By all means stop cigarette smoking completely, if you use tobacco.
If your blood pressure requires aggressive management, and you are advised to use medication, do not hesitate to take it, and then then work on your varied risk factors to see if the medication regimen can be modified as these risk factors are corrected or improved.
I have seen young people lose their kidneys and end up on transplant lists while they have to go through dialysis for eight hours a day, three days a week simply because they deferred their drug management for hypertension. Uncontrolled hypertension hammers away at sensitive kidney tissue and can lead to renal failure in as little as a year or two if you are unlucky. Please do not learn this lesson the hard way.
© 2026 NewsmaxHealth. All rights reserved.