Home | Health

High Blood Pressure Is An Extremely Dangerous Condition Which Usually Has A quite Simple Solution

By: Donald Saunders

Read More About Health

In the last few years alterations to the diet and lifestyle in the majority of western countries have produced a rise in the number of people with high blood pressure.

High blood pressure (which is otherwise called hypertension, or more correctly arterial hypertension) can be a serious condition which rarely carries any symptoms and which, if not detected and treated, can lead to stroke, heart attack, arterial aneurysm, heart failure or renal failure � any one of which represents a serious life-threatening condition.

So precisely what is hypertension and precisely what causes it?

The arteries of your body are continuously filled with blood which exerts a normal 'background' pressure against the walls of the arteries. When the heart pumps freshly oxygenated blood around the body it forces this blood into the arteries momentarily raising the pressure on the walls of the arteries during every heartbeat. These two pressures are called the systolic pressure (the higher pumping pressure of the heart) and the diastolic pressure (the reduced 'background' pressure).

Normal blood pressure differs from person to person but, in general, systolic pressure should be approximately 120mm and diastolic pressure should be about 80mm. This is normally expressed as a blood pressure of 120/80.

When your blood pressure begins to rise and then stays at a level above 120/80 then you are said to be 'prehypertensive' and, while this is not serious in itself, it is a sign that you may be at risk of developing hypertension and all of the problems associated with it. Once your blood pressure reaches, and maintains, a level of 140/90 or higher then you are said to be suffering from hypertension and action ought to be taken to reduce your blood pressure.

So what causes your blood pressure to rise and then remain elevated?

Well, there are a variety of factors at play here and the first is a group over which you have little, if any, control. This group includes low weight at birth, several genetic factors, certain types of diabetes (particularly type 2 diabetes) and your age (as we grow older our arteries have a tendency to become fibrous and lose their elasticity, creating a reduced cross-sectional area for the blood to flow through).

The next group of factors is far more controllable and includes smoking, excess weight, alcohol abuse, stress, high levels of salt and saturated fats in the diet, leading a sedentary lifestyle and employment in certain occupations like motorway maintenance or flying.

The vast majority of these factors are treatable and, in many cases, a simple change in your diet and the addition of a little exercise into your daily plan is all that is necessary to cure the problem. However, the difficulty is that, with few symptoms, the vast majority of people do not know that they have hypertension in the first place.

So how can you go about solving the problem?

Luckily the answer to this question is fairly simple. All you need to do is to drop by your physician's office on a regular basis (for most of us a couple of times a year will be sufficient) and ask him or her to check your blood pressure for you. The whole process is painless, simple and fast and will give you peace of mind and might save your doctor a lot of time, work and expense down the road when you are forced to visit his office once hypertension has set in.

If you are not all that keen on calling in to see your doctor then an excellent alternative today is to simply monitor your own blood pressure. A number of simple to operate and relatively inexpensive monitors are now available, allowing you to maintain a check on your health, and the health of of your whole family, in the comfort and privacy of your own home.

Article Source: http://depositarticles.com/

TheBloodPressureCenter.com provides information on a variety of topics including high blood pressure and exercise, the importance of blood pressure monitoring and finding the best Omron blood pressure monitor

Please Rate this Article

 

Not yet Rated

Click the XML Icon Above to Receive Health Articles Via RSS!
Additional Articles From - Home | Health
Sign Up for a free account.
Our other websites
All about SEO
Beauty Tips Forum
Submit Articles
Member Login
Link Us
Submission Guidelines
Ezine Notifications
Article RSS Feeds
Sitemap
New Stuff
About Us
Developer
Good shopping portal
Link to Us
Contact Us
Privacy Policy
Terms of Service

counter easy hit

Powered by Article Dashboard