Despite weight loss, relatively low salt intake, exercise, and meditation - all the standard lifestyle changes - my bp remains borderline high. I have decided to defer stressing out about it until I reach my goal weight, and see if that does the trick.

I am not getting the RDA for potassium...but wonder if that is set artificially high in order to balance the admittedly inflated recommended intake of sodium. If the body actually needs that much K, it would mean many of us need to rethink our levels of plant consumption. Traditional Inuit don't have hypertension, though, nor, I assume, did Stefansson and his friend, so optimum K levels would have to be within the limits obtainable from a largely carnivorous diet, wouldn't you think?

The other minerals involved in bp regulation seem to be Ca and Mg; although I've read that these would be easily obtainable from hard water, I daresay our ancestors didn't ALL drink from mineral springs...maybe we need to step up the bone broths and/or gnaw on our bones better?

The other issue, it seems to me, is the damaging effects of our previous diets. How long does it take for optimum diet to reverse all the consequences? Are some of them irreversible? Do some conditions which could have been prevented by lifelong paleo diet require non-paleo remedies once they are established? (This is my rationale for nutritional supplements.)

Sorry, I have no answers for you. Mine, as I said, is to keep on with what is working in other respects and see what happens down the road.

Andrea