DIURETICS AND BETA-BLOCKERS- HIGH BLOOD PRESSURE MEDICATIONS
For your sake, I hope that your inability to lose weight dates from the time you were put on anti-hypertension drugs. The reason? In my experience, no medication has proven easier to get off than blood pressure drugs. And, if you can get off of them, since most widely used medications carry considerable side effects, there is an additional motivation to wean yourself.
At the top of the no-no list are the diuretic medications, which work by preventing your kidneys from doing one of their most important jobs: reabsorbing the minerals your body needs. Blocking the kidneys ' ability to reabsorb sodium and chloride takes salt out of the body and lowers blood pressure by lowering the fluids that stay in the body. But those blocked kidneys also lose their ability to retain valuable minerals: not only potassium, but magnesium, calcium, chromium, zinc and many others. Prescription diuretics induce mineral deficiencies that can cause many problems. Numerous studies demonstrate that diuretics aggravate diabetes, elevate blood sugar and increase insulin levels, triglycerides and body mass index( the measure for obesity). For all these reasons, I insist that my patients on diuretics discontinue them and replace them with L-taurine, the natural amino acid that is a powerful diuretic but has no ill effects on kidney function.
The other types of anti-hypertension drugs that aggravate all of the above are beta-blockers. If you are on a betablocker, you have little cause for concern about discontinuing your medication. In the first place, the controlled carb lifestyle that you are adopting lowers blood pressure itself. In addition to L-taurine, you may control blood pressure with magnesium, hawthorne, Coenzyme Quo, carnitine and garlic. Because Atkins will naturally lower your blood pressure, continuing to take pharmaceuticals could put you at risk for an overdose. Again, speak to your doctor before discontinuing any medication!
HOW MANY OTHER DRUGS DO IT?
I ' m sure you are beginning to see how frequently the very drugs that people take for granted as necessary are in fact problematic. Safer, more natural options exist, and even people with no weight problem should consider using them.
There are probably hundreds of other drugs, certainly including psychotropic drugs and lithium, which also create difficulty in losing weight. If I were to go into full detail, it would require an entire book. So let me give you some general advice. If you have been on medication for any length of time, try to recall whether weight gain, increased appetite or lack of responsiveness to weight loss efforts might have coincided with the time frame in which you began that drug. If so, you probably will be able to find a set of nutritional alternatives in Dr Atkins ' Vita-Nutrient Solution, which lists therapies for about sixty different conditions.
REPLACEMENT TECHNIQUES
How do you replace a drug in question with a natural alternative? In most situations, you begin the vitanutrient program that will replace the drug and work with your doctor to gradually lower the drug dosage by some ten to fifteen percent each week, as long as the condition that the
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