Page 29 - March 18 TNT

(hardening of the arteries). Strokes can also come from damaged and weakened blood vessels in the brain, high BP having caused them to narrow, rupture or leak. High blood pressure can also cause blood clots to form in the arteries leading to your brain, blocking blood flow and also causing a stroke.
If we have high blood pressure, is our life as a pilot over? Not at all. The brain function of the mice was restored to normal when they resumed a normal diet. And the blood pressure of most pilots can be lowered with a few changes in lifestyle and diet.
Crew Meals
Fortunately, hypertension is easy to treat. For many people, simply achieving an appropriate weight (BMI), exercising regularly and restricting dietary salt (sodium) will control mild hypertension. Severely restricting salt intake worked great for me and lowered my BP from 150 to below 120 in just a few days. And therein lies this month’s humbly offered pearl of wisdom. I have never needed to, or tried to, control my diet. You name it and I’ve eaten it: spicy
food, salty food, canned soup and canned “meats,” all manner of chips, candy and condiments. I’ve even eaten actually a food, like bugs, tree sap, glue, paper and airline crew meals (no Tide Pods). But after 60-plus years of carefree and careless dining, my BMI is 24.0, A1C blood glucose is 5.3, HDL cholesterol is 35 and LDL is 83. And up until last year, my BP was below 140. When it climbed over 150 and started to threaten my FAA medical, sodium and I parted ways.
Here are three blood pressure myths and some final pearls of wisdom to consider before your next flight physical.
Myth No. 1: High blood pressure runs in my family so there’s nothing I can do to prevent it. Yes and no. While hereditary, lifestyle and dietary choices have allowed many people with a family history to avoid it themselves.
Myth No. 2: I don’t use table salt so I’m in control of sodium intake. Not good enough. About 75 percent of the sodium we consume is in processed foods. The worst are vegetable juice, canned soups, canned meats, canned vegetables, most condiments, beets, lunch meats, spag-
About 75 percent of the sodium we consume is in processed foods. Restricting dietary salt (sodium) will control mild hypertension.
hetti sauce and ready-to-eat cereals.
Myth No. 3: I don’t use any regular table salt, only kosher, red or sea salt. Wrong answer. Table salt, red salt and sea salt contain comparable amounts of sodium by weight. All are about 97 percent NaCl (40 percent sodium, 60 percent chloride).
Once we’ve licked our salt addiction, we can also consider some precaution- ary, pre-physical preparations to avoid other problematic peculiarities as well. And although most minor abnormali-
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March 2018
TWIN & TURBINE • 27