Lowering blood pressure without drugs

(New York-WABC, February 2, 2007) (WABC) -- Lowering your blood pressure on your own, without drugs.

It has a lot of patients breathing easier.

Seven's On Call with Dr. Jay Adlersberg.

High blood pressure is common, and is one cause of heart disease and stroke. But treating it with drugs can have side effects, including dizziness and sexual dysfunction. Now, a new device is helping doctors and patients.

It looks like meditation, and in a way it is, a medical way. It's a technique patients can use to control their high blood pressure without pills.

"People have been looking for non-drug ways of treating it for many years," said Dr. Thomas Pickering, of Columbia University Medical Center. "There's been a lot of discussion about yoga and things like that, but this seems to work better."

Robert Hartman has had high blood pressure for a long time and has been taking a bunch of pills.

"The numbers weren't coming down adequatly, and I went online to see what else I could do to supplement to the medication I was taking," he said.

Hartman found the RESPeRATE device online. Here's how it works. The belts around the abdomen sense breath frequency, and the computer helps reduce breaths to four to six per minute.

Patients are supposed to use the device for 15 minutes a day. After about eight weeks, the reduction in blood pressure seems to be maintained for the whole day.

The way breathing control works on blood pressure is a mystery. Doctors don't know if the effect will persist when the device is used for more than eight weeks. It doesn't produce huge reductions in blood pressure readings, but doctors say it may allow patients to get by with less medication.

Hartman has used it for 15 minutes a day for four months. He says his blood pressure is now normal.

"I have not cut back on the medication," he said. "I'd only do that with my doctor, but I'm on the right path."

The device is FDA approved, and Dr. Pickering and colleagues are planning studies to see how long beyond the eight-week point the blood pressure reduction persists. According to the makers Web site, the device costs $300.

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