How To Treat High Or Low Blood Pressure

Blood pressure control is important in that it can potentially save a hypertensive patient’s life. High blood pressure or hypertension is the force exerted on the artery walls by the blood flowing through the body. When the force is challenged, the pressure of the blood elevates. This elevated pressure can cause more serious complications; therefore it must be treated effectively.

High blood pressure has no significant signs or symptoms and is often referred to as the “silent killer.” Consequently, many Americans have developed the condition, yet they are not aware of it.

The American Heart Association documents that an estimate of 50million Americans suffer with high blood pressure and requires ongoing medical attention to maintain proper blood pressure control.

Healthcare professionals implement a well- rounded individualized treatment plan to decrease the pressure as well as control progression. Each treatment plan is designed to accommodate existing and pre- existing factors that may induce the development of the condition.

Initially, the healthcare professional will prescribe certain anti- hypertensive medications. These drugs are used to immediately lower the blood pressure levels. One of the most common drugs for blood pressure control is the calcium channel blocking agents (channel blockers or calcium antagonists). These channel blockers reduce the force of contraction of muscles of the heart and muscle.

Another drug used to reduce blood pressure is the peripheral vasodilators. Hydralazine (Apresoline), isxuprine (Vasodilan), and minoxidil (Loniten) act as blood vessel relaxers. Yet another antihypertensive drug is the thiazide diurectics. The diurectics promote sodium loss thereby lowering blood volume. More so, the thiazide diurectics helps lower the pressure of the walls of the blood vessels; which is also referred to as the peripheral vascular resistance.

Blood pressure control can also be accomplished by implementing daily healthy life- style changes. These changes may include a healthy eating plan, weight loss, and exercise. Healthcare professionals suggest that a healthy diet, which should consist of fruits and vegetables, low- sodium intake and foods that are low in fats and cholesterol. Obesity plays a major role in elevated blood pressure.

Changing your diet and incorporating physical activity into your daily routine will help you loose and maintain a healthy body weight. Lastly, exercise will not only help you loose weight, it will assist with improving the overall health.

Believe it or not, exercise does not require much effort. Light to moderate physical activity, such as walking, bicycling, or even yoga can significantly lower blood pressure. Exercise is also known to minimize the need for medications and reduce the effects of annoying side effects.

Related Blogs

• Fitness Elliptical Trainer For Healthy Lifestyle | SpotThisNow
• Which antihypertensive drug to use after a diuretic: an ACE-inhibitor or beta-blocker seems preferable to a calcium channel blocker « NPCi blog

As a first step, let’s talk about your heart.

Your heart is an organ that is mostly muscle tissue. It is a pump. In very simple terms its job is to receive incoming blood from the body that is low in oxygen and pump it to the lungs.
As it passes through the lungs the blood gets rid of carbon dioxide and picks up oxygen. Then the blood goes back to the heart and the heart pumps the oxygen rich blood out to the entire body.

Blood flows through arteries going out from the heart to various parts of the body, and through veins on the way back to the heart.

The heart pumps blood by the rhythmic contraction of the four chambers in the heart. It is the strong contractions of the lower two chambers (called ventricles) that pumps the blood out of and away from the heart to the various parts of the body.

There is a great deal of pressure created by the contraction of the ventricles. and it is this pressure that pushes the blood through the miles of arteries within the body.

It is the pressure, the force of the blood pushing against the inside walls of your arteries, that is being discussed when we talk about blood “pressure.”

What do the numbers mean?

You’ve probably heard the sound of a heart beating at some time. It sounds sort of like: lub-DUB, lub-DUB, lub-DUB, lub-DUB.

The “lub” is the sound of the auricles beating and pumping the blood into the bigger, more powerful chambers, the ventricles. The “DUB” is the sound of the ventricles beating, and pumping the blood away from the heart (see the above illustration).

When the powerful ventricles contract (the “DUB”), that is the moment of greatest pressure called the “systolic pressure.”
Between one “lub-DUB” and the next “lub-DUB” is a moment when the heart is not beating at all, that is the moment of lowest pressure called the “diastolic pressure.”

When doctors or nurses measure your blood pressure, they usually give it to you as two numbers, the “systolic” over the “diastolic” or the high over the low measurements.

These numbers fall into certain ranges:

What controls blood pressure?

Blood pressure is controlled by tiny muscles that line the inside of your blood vessels.
These muscles allow your arteries to operate like soft rubber tubes, that expand with each beat of your heart.

When these muscles throughout the vascular system [the arteries and veins that carry blood] expand, blood pressure drops.

When these muscles throughout the vascular system tense up, blood pressure rises.

When these muscles get tense, the arteries become narrower, more rigid, less flexible, and the heart has to beat harder to keep the blood flowing through these narrower tubes.

If the muscles that line your arteries are tense all the time, the blood pressure will remain high. This is called hypertension!

Continuous high blood pressure puts extra strain, wear and tear on your heart and arteries, that can eventually lead to heart attacks and strokes.

What Causes High Blood Pressure?

What is it that makes the muscles that line your blood vessels tense all the time? What are the things that can actually drive your blood pressure up?
* Poor diet
* Nutritional deficiencies
* Being overweight
* Alcohol and caffeine in excess
* Emotional and physical stress
* Being diabetic
Each of the above can cause the loss of vital minerals from the body. These minerals are essential to the natural and effective control of blood pressure.

“Magnesium is essential for cells to maintain proper balances of other minerals such as potassium, sodium, and calcium.”

“When cells are deficient in magnesium, this balance is disrupted, and cells lose potassium and are flooded with calcium and sodium.”

“In the smooth muscle cells of the blood vessels, this sets the stage for constriction and elevation of blood pressure.”

excerpted from The Magnesium Solution
by Jay S. Cohen, M.D.

Not having enough magnesium is one of the main causes of high blood pressure.

“As many as half of us in the United States are magnesium deficient.”

“Our soils are becoming depleted of magnesium, which eliminates the natural opportunity to receive magnesium from fruits, vegetables, and water.”

excerpted from The Sinatra Solution
by Stephen T. Sinatra, M.D.

Blood Pressure Drugs

Today, most people with high blood pressure are only treating the symptoms and not getting to the root of the problem.

Furthermore, many hypertension medications given to people with high blood pressure are adding to the problem instead of getting to the root cause.
All blood pressure medications are man-made chemicals. They are alien substances in your body.

They attempt to directly address the high blood pressure (which is a symptom) rather than what is causing the high blood pressure.

Some of these medications will do this by slowing your heart beat, others by interfering with nerve impulses to your arteries, and still others by removing water from your body, or blocking biochemical reactions, or preventing calcium from entering the cells that make up the walls of your arteries.

All blood pressure medications have side effects. Some of these side effects are so strong that they negatively impact your quality of life.
Often, two or three of these drugs are prescribed to be used at the same time, which creates even more side effects as a result of the chemical interactions between the drugs.

Related Blogs

• Introduction to High Blood Pressure
• What are the Causes of High Blood Pressure? | High Blood Pressure Diet