High blood pressure appears when pressure values of the blood flow along the arteries are higher than normal.
High blood pressure means 140/90 mm Hg for three successive measurements, in repose conditions.
It is important to know that medication is recommended only for people who present risk factors associated to these values.
The causes of high blood pressure are in general represented by a lot of factors. An important factor is heredity, which means genetic inheritance, which means factors related to the quality of the vessels, emotional or conflict repetitive conditions, some endocrine problems, consumption of foods based on a huge amount of calories, and a lot of salt. In these cases high blood pressure is called essential. In the rest of the cases high blood pressure is considered secondary, having renal or endocrine causes, or even anomalies of arterial walls.
High blood pressure is a silent disease, because it does not have symptoms for years. It is said that people who live in South Asia or in Africa have higher blood pressure than other ethnic groups.
Some of the other causes of this disease are smoking, obesity and a sedentary life style, but in most of the cases doctors don’t know the causes.
If a person is overweight the blood can’t circulate easily through the arteries therefore blood pressure increases.
Another cause might be lack of physical exercise, like running, cycling, aerobics, or any other dynamic activities.
To continue, while smoking, blood pressure increases suddenly and it remains high for an hour or more.
In the case of salt, sodium retains water, thus blood volume increases and this leads to high blood pressure.
Alcohol should not be ignored. Men should drink maximum two glasses of drink per day.
A high level of cholesterol might also influence negatively blood pressure.
And nowadays an important factor which affects blood pressure is emotional stress. As we live in a world of conflicts and violence everywhere, our nervous system sometimes weakens and blood pressure might increase when we are affected even by minor events.
There are a lot of ways to eliminate its causes and most of them can be found, fortunately within us…
