I'm a mess!

[steingar]

I eat right and exercise regularly. Went to my very pretty AME yesterday. My vision sucks, my blood pressure was sky high, and I've shrunk.

Anyone who's witnessed my diminutive stature knows the last thing I need to be is shorter. This getting old stuff really sucks. No, it isn't better than the alternative. Lots of beasties are paedogenic.

 

[Jim Logajan]

I eat right

How did you determine that? What's your reference metric and how valid is it?

and exercise regularly.

Exercising every Monday would make the above a true statement. How often, for how long, and what is the nature of this regular exercise?

Went to my very pretty AME yesterday. My vision sucks, my blood pressure was sky high, and I've shrunk.

As I understand it, neither exercise, and absent some nutritional deficiency, or eating have any influence over aging vision. With respect to aging and shared mortality, as Red Green said "We're all in this together."

For BP, maybe increase potassium intake and reduce sodium? I believe very few people get adequate potassium in their diet:

http://www.nationaldairycouncil.org...nts/PotassiumRecommendationFactSheetFINAL.pdf

Safety of using potassium supplements:
http://www.crnusa.org/safetypdfs/019CRNSafetyPotassium.pdf

 

[Jim Logajan]

I am a vegetarian, and eat a very balanced diet with little fat and not so many carbohydrates (any starch I eat is whole grain and often ancient grains).

Although you say elsewhere that you believe you have a genetic predisposition for gout (presumably higher than average uric acid in the blood) it seems to me that a vegetarian diet need not automatically reduce purine intake, which (if I understand these things at all correctly) I assume is probably a causal factor regardless of genetics. Some otherwise "healthy" vegetables are definitely high in purines (http://www.livestrong.com/article/313628-vegetables-high-in-purines/)

I walk 6 miles a day, 5 days a week.

Sounds reasonable. I only get in about 35 minutes a day, 5 days a week, of exercise on an elliptical.

Possibly. I have the suspicion that the BP reading was artifactual, and that the spike was due to the reintroduction of allopurinol, which can boost BP. If I am right I am seeing a spike that should correct itself over time. If I'm wrong positive action will have to be taken, starting with a weight loss of no less than 10 pounds. Unfortunately, to do that I'll have to give up alcohol, and most days I'd rather give up eating. But based on previous results I suspect that will cure both my BP and my gout. I'll be taking BP readings quite regularly for the next little bit, and we'll see how it goes. Also, since my weight loss will involve drastic portion control, I'll have to perforce ingest a multivitamin, which will likely remediate any nutritional or ionic imbalance.

BTW, I only mention potassium as a possible supplement to lower BP because for a while I was taking about ~1 gm three times a day of elemental potassium by mixing potassium chloride into orange (or apple) juice for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. The KCl added a bit of "body" (or saltiness) to the juice. Not surprising, since KCl is a salt. When I was doing that I was checking my BP since KCl can lower the BP. The lowest my BP readings went during the month of supplementing was 97/63; I had started with a near-normal 120/80. (Some BP lowering foods and supplements are listing on this page with a nice BP chart: http://www.vaughns-1-pagers.com/medicine/blood-pressure.htm)

(Large potassium chloride solutions injected intravenously are used as one means of capital punishment, and may be one reason many people seem skittish about using it as a supplement. Yet there are cultures that consume up to 8 to 11 gms/day of K with no negative side effects, yet most western diets allegedly result in 3 gms/day or less, so other than gastrointestinal upset, you are exceedingly unlikely to kill yourself with a few gms/day extra K.)

I am not a doctor and don't play one on TV.