Natural treatments for high blood pressure and cholesterol are often equally effective to medications. Leading expert in Integrative Medicine from California explains which natural hypertension and high cholesterol therapies work best.

How to treat hypertension naturally? Dr. Anton Titov, MD. What are Natural treatments for high blood pressure and cholesterol? Is red yeast rice a natural source of statin? Use Artichoke leaf extract to lower cholesterol. Can you use biofeedback to lower blood pressure without medications? Integrative Medicine treatments in heart disease. Use Cocoa to increase your HDL good cholesterol levels. Video interview with top expert in integrative medicine. Medical second opinion ensures that high cholesterol diagnosis is correct and complete. Medical second opinion also helps to choose the best holistic natural treatment strategy for high cholesterol. Dr. Anton Titov, MD. Seek medical second opinion on natural treatment of high cholesterol and be confident that your treatment is the best. Natural treatments for high blood pressure and cholesterol. Red yeast rice. Dr. Anton Titov, MD. Heart disease and Integrative Medicine. There are many effective medical treatments for heart disease. There are also heart surgery interventions. But there is also strong evidence for benefits of Integrative Medicine in heart disease. Please discuss Integrative Medicine methods to prevent and treat heart disease. Dr. Kevin Barrows, MD. Integrative Medicine specialist, Director of Mindfulness Program, UCSF. Heart disease is a good example because modern medicine has really done well in treating heart disease. Perhaps modern medicine is less successful in preventing heart disease. Modern medicine has succeeded in some risk factor reduction for heart disease. For example, controlling high blood pressure and hyperlipidemia. But Integrative Medicine is also useful in those areas. Let's look at hypertension. Biofeedback is useful to treat hypertension. Many studies and meta analyses showed that biofeedback lowers systolic blood pressure by 3 to 6 mm. Biofeedback lowers diastolic blood pressure by 2 to 4 mm. That is statistically significant reduction in arterial blood pressure. So biofeedback lowers blood pressure. We know that every millimeter of arterial blood pressure reduction translates into cardiovascular risk reduction. There food supplements that also lower blood pressure: high-dose fish oil and Coenzyme Q10 (CoQ10). Cocoa is my favorite food to lower blood pressure and treat hypertension. You can eat cocoa in addition to drinking cocoa. Cocoa contains polyphenols. They actively lower blood pressure and can treat hypertension. There is good research evidence for effectiveness of cocoa in lowering blood pressure. Research also shows benefit of some garlic extracts in lowering of cholesterol and treatment of hyperlipidemia. Statins are very potent medications to lower cholesterol. Statins are effective in secondary prevention of heart disease. Sometimes patients can tolerate statin treatment. Statins are useful in hyperlipidemia therapy. Some patients do not tolerate statins. Other patients simply choose not to take these medications. There are other natural treatments that lower cholesterol. For example: dietary fiber, oat bran, natural psyllium fiber. These high fiber products will lower cholesterol. Artichoke leaf extract can lower cholesterol. Artichoke leaf extract was used for a long time before statins became available. Artichoke leaf extract is still being used to help treat hyperlipidemia. Red yeast rice (Monascus purpureus) lowers cholesterol. Active ingredient in red yeast rice is a fungus. It grows on this red rice. Extract from that fungal growth will lower cholesterol. There some nuances in using red yeast rice. Red yeast rice was declared illegal in the United States. Red yeast rice contains some lovastatin. A pharmaceutical company has a patent on lovastatin. It argued that use of red yeast rice is against their patent. Dr. Anton Titov, MD. Red yeast rice has naturally produced lovastatin? Dr. Kevin Barrows, MD. Yes, exactly. There are also other substances in the red yeast rice that lower cholesterol. But there is some naturally-made lovastatin in red yeast rice. Dr. Anton Titov, MD. Natural treatments for high blood pressure and cholesterol. Cocoa increases HDL cholesterol. Artichoke leaf extract, red yeast rice lowers LDL cholesterol.