| Hypertension is frequently called the "silent killer", as many males and females do not even know they have it. This is because most men and women with high blood pressure have no symptoms.
Blood is carried around your body by the arteries. When your heart beats, it thrusts blood through the arteries. In people who have healthy arteries, the blood is able to stream through the arteries with insignificant resistance. But in people whose arteries have constricted, the arteries resist the blood running through them. The heart has to work far harder to get the blood where it should go, and this is how hypertension occurs. Hypertension places a huge strain on your heart and impairs the arteries. This raises your risk for heart problems and kidney failure.
Blood pressure in healthy grownups is 120/80 or lower. High blood pressure is a reading 140/90 or higher. If your blood pressure is between 120/80 and 140/90, you have something called prehypertension. This indicates you are gradually developing high blood pressure.
Several factors increase your risk of hypertension. Some you can control, and some you cannot. The factors you cannot control are:
• Race. African Americans are said to develop hypertension more often and at an earlier age. Moreover, high blood pressure in African Americans is more severe.
• Age. Risk of high blood pressure increases as you become older.
• Heredity. If some of your close family members have high blood pressure, you are at higher risk.
Other factors that put you at risk for high blood pressure include obesity, lack of regular exercise, smoking, consumption of too much salt.
Doctors recommend that all grownups aged 18 and older be examined for hypertension. If you have hypertension, here are some tips to help you lower it.
- Stop smoking. Nicotine makes your blood vessels constrict and your heart beat faster, which raises your blood pressure.
- Lose extra weight if you are corpulent.
- Be more active. Try to be active at a moderate intensity for half an hour, 5 or more days a week.
- Choose a healthy diet rich in vitamins and low fats.
- Cut down on alcohol and sodium.
If life-style alterations alone do not reduce your blood pressure, your general practitioner may also prescribe antihypertensive medicines to treat your high blood pressure. But note: even if are on medication, changing your life-style can help decrease the amount of medicines you take. |
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