Hypertension; An Overview

You've been diagnosed by your doctor as having high blood pressure. He has put you on medications to help reduce this potential killer. What else can you do for your condition? In addition to the medication prescribed there are controllable factors in your lifestyle you can look at to help reduce your blood pressure. Let's take a quick look at hypertension and its causes.

What is High Blood Pressure?

Let's first look at what high blood pressure is and what it can do to you.

According to the American Heart Association you have high blood pressure or hypertension when;

• Your systolic or upper reading is at or above 140. This is Stage I hypertension.

• If your systolic reading is at or above 160, you have stage 2 hypertension'

• At 180 or above, this is considered a hypertensive crisis. You should seek immediate medical help.

The systolic reading measures the pressure in the arteries when the heart beats.

Let's now look at the diastolic or the lower reading. This is the pressure in the arteries between heart beats.

You should be concerned if your diastolic reads;

• 90 or above. Between 90-99 is Stage 1, 100 or higher is stage 2 and above 110 is cause for concern. You should seek immediate medical help if yours is above 110.

What Uncontrolled HBP Can Do

If you don't bring your blood pressure under control you can suffer some serious damage or even death. According to the CDC (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention), 1 out of every 3 Americans has high blood pressure. Left untreated or under treated HBP, according to the Mayo Clinic , can lead to;

• Artery damage.

• Aneurysm.

• Stroke.

• Dementia

• Kidney damage or even failure.

• Heart attacks.

• Eye damage.

• Bone loss.

While this list is not all inclusive, it is pretty frightening none the less.

Factors Affecting Blood Pressure

There are a number of factors that come into play. Some are controllable, some you can do nothing about. Here is a look at some risk factors associated with high blood pressure;

• Race. African-Americans have a higher tendency toward hypertension.

• Genetics. Do you have a family history of hypertension? If you do, you are at greater risk for High blood pressure yourself.

• Diet plays a big part here. How is your diet? Are you eating lots of fat, sugar or salt? It is important to watch what you eat in helping you bring your hypertension under control.

• Smoking. Do you smoke? This along with alcohol use is a big one.

• Age. Along with race and family history this is one factor you cannot control.

• Weight. How is your weight. Are you heavy or even obese? This will tend to bring your blood pressure up.

Now that we know what high blood pressure is, we will look, in the next article, what we can do to help bring this possible killer under control.

American Heart Association

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)

Mayo Clinic

Yahoo! Contributors Network: Heart-Healthy Eating for Those With Cardiac Problems