On-screen, he’s defeated aliens, robots, and international super spies. Now actor Will Smith has defeated high blood pressure in real life – and he did it without medication!
Smith said the key was fasting, and after a 10 day “controlled fast,” he was able to stop taking hypertension drugs he had been on for ten years!
Controlled fasting is considered by some as a safer and more effective substitute for many medicines. Advocates of controlled or “intermittent” fasting believe it to be a cure for a host of ailments as it allows a full body detox and at the same time negates the ill effects of our constant obsession with eating unhealthy foods.
Will Smith says he was on a downward spiral as he went on vodka and high-carbs induced binge diet. His family members began disparagingly referring to him as “pudge muffin.” He decided to tackle his problems head-on and even got his family together for an unscripted meeting to discuss his weight issues.
The 50-year-old actor decided to try out a systematic plan of fasting for 10 days after he reached an imposing 225 pounds.
Talking on Facebook in “Red Table Talks,” he revealed that during a recent family vacation, he went a bit crazy and started having 4 to 5 muffins for breakfast. Back from his vacation, the star of “Gemini Man” went on his 10-day fast.
Smith believes that his controlled and methodical fasting routine lowered his blood pressure sufficiently for him to give up on his BP meds, something he had never done in his ten years of being prescribed the various hypertension drugs.
Will smith’s fasting routine was unclear as he didn’t elaborate much. But it can mean anything from skipping certain meals, a liquid-only diet, or complete fasting without water and food. Four days into his regime, the actor noticed a considerable fall in blood pressure. It was significant enough to encourage Will Smith to give up his medication.
While few cardiologists will go on record endorsing Smith’s approach to dropping his BP, advocating instead for a “heart-healthy diet” and regular exercise, there is sufficient evidence that certain types of fasting can help to reduce the chances of chronic health issues like heart disease, multiple sclerosis, and diabetes.
Still, how fasting does this is not totally clear to medical science, and any fasting schedule should be monitored or, better yet, medically supervised. Improper fasting could cause dehydration or worse. Also, it is not recommended that anyone stop taking a prescription medication without consulting with their physician.
Rather than trying a long-term 10-day fast as Smith did, the health benefits of “intermittent” or “interval fasting” (IF) have been well documented, and IF when done correctly, is relatively safe. 8:16 fasting is a popular variant of IF where you are supposed to eat all your meals within eight hours in a day and fast for the other 16.
Besides lowering your blood pressure and possibly lessening your risk of cardiovascular disease, there are other benefits of fasting. Dr. Miriam Merad, director of the Precision Immunology Institute at Mt. Sinai School of Medicine, mentioned that fasting reduces inflammation. Dr. Merad believes that eating twice a day should suffice and be quite beneficial to our health.
