| Arteries carry blood around the body. When the heart beats, it thrusts blood through the arteries. In people who have healthy arteries, the blood is able to flow through the arteries with insignificant resistance. But in a person whose arteries have become narrow, the arteries resist the blood running through them. The heart has to work harder to get the blood where it needs to go, and that is when high blood pressure occurs. High blood pressure puts a huge strain on your heart and causes damage to the arteries. This raises your risk for stroke, heart attack, cardiac disease and kidney failure. High blood pressure is sometimes called the "silent killer", as you can have it without even knowing that you do. This is because the majority of people with hypertension have no symptoms.
Blood pressure is made up of 2 measurements. The first figure is called systolic, and refers to the peak blood pressure when your heart is directing blood into the arteries. The other number is called diastolic, which is the pressure when your heart is relaxing between beats. When you blood pressure is taken, the systolic pressure is measured first, and the diastolic pressure is measured second.
Blood pressure in a healthy grownup is 120/80 or lower. Hypertension is a reading 140/90 or higher.
A few factors increase your risk of high blood pressure. Some you can be in control of, and some you cannot. The factors you cannot be in control of are:
- Race. African Americans develop hypertension more often and at an earlier age. Furthermore, severe cases of hypertension are more often observed in African Americans.
- Age. Risk of high blood pressure raises as you get older.
- Heredity. If some of your close family members have high blood pressure, you are at risk.
Other factors that place you at risk for hypertension include
• being corpulent
• lack of physical exercise
• smoking
• eating too much salt.
Doctors recommend that all grownups aged 18 and older be examined for hypertension. If you have high blood pressure, the following are some recommendations to help you reduce it.
- Give up smoking. Nicotine brings on your blood vessels to narrower and your heart to beat quicker, which increases your blood pressure.
- Lose extra weight if you are corpulent.
- Do physical exercises regularly for half an hour 5 or days a week.
- Go on a balanced diet high in vitamins and low in pure fat.
- Consume less sodium and alcohol.
If life-style alterations alone do not lower your blood pressure, your general practitioner may furthermore prescribe antihypertensive medications to treat your hypertension. The goal is to reduce blood pressure to normal levels with medicines that are easy to administer and have fewer adverse side effects. |
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