In this episode of Bulletproof Radio, we take a deep dive into a part of your biology you may not be paying enough attention to.

Your blood pressure. If it’s running too high for too long, it puts you at risk for heart disease and stroke.

The American College of Cardiology and the American Heart Association recently redefined hypertension as a blood pressure reading of 130/80 or higher. Previously, that threshold was 140/90. That change resulted in 31 million more people falling into a range of hypertension—meaning about 105 million U.S. adults age 20 and older.

Putting the power of health directly into people’s hands always makes me happy, so I talked with Mark Young, CEO of Zona Health, about a solution.

Lifestyle factors play a key role in keeping blood pressure within a healthy range—diet makes a difference and so does physical activity. And medication doesn’t have to be inevitable. For those of you whose numbers may be higher than optimal, there’s a software-controlled, handheld device available that uses a series of uniquely-calibrated algorithms to determine the perfect hand grip exercise for each individual user.

Hand grip? Well, yes.

“It's a medical device that uses isometric exercise to ultimately lower blood pressure,” Mark says.

“The Zona is helping you do exactly what your body's naturally programmed to do,” he continues. “The device is not solving the problem; the device is training your body to solve its own problem.” (It’s also hacking time, taking only minutes per day to use.)

The cool factor? This device technology is based on decades of g-force experiments done by the U.S. Air Force. And did I mention the connection between nitric oxide production and erectile dysfunction? We chat about that, too.

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