Hypertension, or high blood pressure, is a condition in which the blood pumped from your heart is placing too much pressure on your artery walls, resulting in stress being placed continually on both your arteries and heart. Hypertension can be inherited, a side effect of other health related problems, or caused by a combination of factors including diet, exercise, and drug and alcohol intake. High blood pressure often leads to heart disease, an umbrella term that refers to any of a number of illnesses or disorders concerning the cardiovascular system. Because heart disease is the number one killer of adults in the U.S, understanding what your blood pressure is, how to control it, and what to do if you are suffering from hypertension is extremely important. Luckily, there are many ways to lower your blood pressure and thus your chances of suffering from many related illnesses.
Personal Habits and Supplements
The first step is to first monitor your blood pressure at home or at the doctor’s, taking into account fluctuations based on your recent food intake, exercise habits, and stress levels for example. For mild hypertension, changing some personal habits can have a big effect. High blood pressure worsens with high intake of foods heavy in fat and salt, prompting the Mayo Clinic to recommend less than 1,500 mg of salt per day and very limited portions of saturated fat for at risk adults. Maintaining a healthy lifestyle that includes daily exercise and a normal weight can significantly lessen hypertension problems as well, along with limiting consumption of cigarettes and alcohol.
For overweight and obese adults, the chances of having hypertension are increased significantly, most likely due to the higher volume of blood with higher levels of glucose that passes through the arteries. For these reasons, losing even five pounds can significantly affect a person’s blood pressure. Thanks to this understanding, many supplements are available that work to lessen arterial tension and help people lose weight in an effort to attack hypertension on two fronts at the same time. For example, green coffee extract is a newly popular supplement that has been found to both help relieve hypertension and aid in gradual weight loss when accompanied by a healthy diet and exercise plan, readily available at www.puregreencoffeeinfo.com. Weight loss or maintenance of a normal weight is one of the most effective tools available in the fight against high blood pressure thanks to its cumulative and long-lasting effects on the entire body and must be taken seriously.
Medical Intervention for Serious Hypertension
For some, such lifestyle changes and dietary supplements cannot make a big enough difference in a person’s blood pressure. In these cases, doctors will usually prescribe a combination of drugs that affect various aspects of the cardiovascular system. Usually, such treatment plans begin with a basic diuretic to thin out the blood and lessen pressure on the arterial walls and include one or more drugs that work to open the blood vessels of the heart and arteries and resultantly require the heart to work less. The next class of medications, for more serious patients, attempts to limit the nervous system’s response by lessening how fast it can signal the body to pump the heart thus controlling the heart’s ability to pump hard and fast.
Hypertension is a dangerous condition that can exist without exhibiting any symptoms. Luckily, blood pressure can usually be lowered through a combination of healthy personal habits, supplements, and medication when necessary. Unlike many other conditions, high blood pressure is 100% reversible and does not necessarily imply that a problem today will inevitably be a continuous problem of the future, if it is taken under control soon enough to prevent permanent damage to the cardiovascular system and other organs in the body.