How To Treat High Or Low Blood Pressure

High blood pressure is a silent disease that can strike anyone without warning signs. Today, younger people are experiencing high blood pressure, because of bad eating habits, weight gain and use of drugs or alcohol. Lack of exercise can also lead to high blood pressure, so it’s important to keep a healthy lifestyle for peak health. High blood pressure can lead to other conditions that are not treatable, so prevention is a key to keeping quality of life.

High blood pressure, or hypertension, is just that. It means that high pressure, or tension, is present in the arteries that carry oxygenated blood from the heart to every cell in your body and then transports that deoxygenated blood back to the lungs for more.

High blood pressure can be caused by stress, so it’s wise to try to ‘de-stress’ on daily if possible, especially in today’s hectic, always-on-the-go society. High blood pressure can lead to heart and kidney disease, as well as causing hardening of the arteries.

This condition gradually blocks artery walls until only a fraction of blood volume can get through to where it’s needed. Vision problems and even stroke can also be direct results of high blood pressure.

Organ Damage

Such conditions are sometimes called ‘end organ damage’ because the damage that occurs to some organs is directly due to the effects of high blood pressure and not because there was something wrong with them in the first place.

It’s important to recognize the signs of high blood pressure and then do something about them instead of waiting, to prevent such collateral damage from occurring. Studies have shown that high blood pressure, or hypertension, affects one out of four individuals in the United States alone.

Those over fifty years old experience the greatest risks. Regular exercise and a proper, well-balanced diet are two of the best preventive measures that a person can take to avoid high blood pressure.

Every person can experience varying levels of blood pressure throughout the day, so it’s important to take a blood pressure reading at several different times if you suspect that you may have high blood pressure.

Remember also that chemical balances within the body and any other medical conditions or diseases may affect a blood pressure reading. If suffering from high blood pressure, you should avoid products containing caffeine altogether. You should also avoid smoking.

Treatment

Many treatments and medications are available to treat high blood pressure, the most common of them being beta-blockers and ACE inhibitors. A beta-blocker can reduce the risk of having a heart attack and serves to protect the cardiac muscle in people who suffer from cardiac disease. An ACE inhibitor also serves the same purpose and both medications are relatively inexpensive.

However, there are many different kinds and causes of high blood pressure and each is and can be treated with a different class of medication. Prevention is the key. Keeping good eating habits, getting plenty of exercise and staying away from smoking and alcohol are the best things that anyone can do to avoid high blood pressure.

Related Blogs

• Yamaha Electone Organ Versus Yamaha Arranger Keyboard
• Article: Eating Healthier at Work | Ahdaq.com |

Are you one of the estimated 20 million Americans who have high blood pressure but is doing nothing to treat it?  You do know what the consequences of not reducing your blood pressure are right?  Those consequences read like a scene out of ER.  Heart attack, stroke, blindness, kidney failure and now high diastolic blood pressure is being looked at as a possible contributor to Alzheimer’s.

What was that really good reason for doing nothing again?

High blood pressure is endemic in the United States.  Over 60 million Americans have it and fully a third is doing nothing about it.  Probably the biggest reason that some ignore this very dangerous condition is that it has no outward symptoms.  It may take years of abusing your blood vessels before the affects of high pressure manifest themselves as a heart attack or worse.

Out of sight out of mind is not a valid strategy when treating high blood pressure.

The really frustrating part for public health officials is that this condition can be prevented, controlled and even reversed in 90% of the cases.  And it can be done naturally without medication.

Think about that for a moment.  If you had cancer would you be ignoring it?  If you had cancer and there was a way to control it or reverse it without using chemo or radiation would you ignore it?

Then why are you ignoring your high blood pressure?

The American Heart Association endorses changes in lifestyle over medication when treating high blood pressure.  Changes in diet and exercise can quickly and dramatically reduce both systolic and diastolic pressure.  This isn’t rocket science and it’s not difficult to do.  All it takes is a little knowledge and a little commitment.  It doesn’t require life changing behavior.  Every little bit you do to lower your pressure counts.

Can you do any of these?

Walk for 10 to 30 minutes each day (it doesn’t all have to be at the same time)
Cut back on salt by eating out less.
Eat a banana a day.
Limit your alcohol intake to two drinks a day.
At a fresh fruit daily.
Substitute fish, poultry or lean white meat instead of beef three times a week
Take a garlic supplement daily.

There’s a ton more you could do but if you can do half the things on this list you can control your pressure.  Can you do that?

What are you waiting for?  Take responsibility for your health.  Do it for yourself, do it for your family or do it for your friends.  Just do it.