How Common Is High Blood Pressure
High blood pressure is a common condition, it is estimated that 18% of adult men and 13% of adult women have high blood pressure but are not getting treatment for it.
In 90-95% of cases, there is no single identifiable reason for a rise in blood pressure. But all available evidence shows that lifestyle plays a significant role in regulating your blood pressure.
Risk factors for high blood pressure include:
- being overweight
- excessive alcohol consumption.
Also, for reasons not fully understood, people of Afro-Caribbean and South Asian origin are more likely to develop high blood pressure than other ethnic groups.
What Is Blood Pressure
Blood pressure is the measure of how much pressure the circulating blood is exerting against the walls of your arteries.
Arteries are blood vessels that carry oxygenated blood away from the heart to the rest of the body. Blood pressure is measured in units of millimeters of mercury , and the readings are made up of two values expressed as a fraction top number or systolic pressure and bottom number or diastolic pressure.
Systolic pressure: it indicates the amount of pressure in the arteries during the contraction of your heart muscle. This will be the higher number in the BP reading.
Diastolic pressure: it indicates the blood pressure when the heart muscle is between beats and the heart is relaxed This will be the lower number in the BP reading.
A blood pressure reading between 90/60 mm Hg and 120/80 mm Hg is considered to be normal BP in an adult. If your results fall into this category, adhere to an active lifestyle and a wholesome diet to keep that going.
Moreover, no medical intervention is needed if your systolic and diastolic pressures are measured within this specified range. It can vary slightly even in healthy people.
However, if the numbers are higher or lower than the given range can be dangerous, you should seek medical attention at the earliest.
Tips For Avoiding Low Blood Pressure
Talk to your healthcare provider or a dietitian about healthy foods to include on your shopping list. There are ways you can modify daily behaviors that may help as well.
If you suspect you may have anemia, be sure to visit your healthcare provider for testing to pinpoint the type of anemia and the best treatment options.
Here are a few other changes you can make to your diet to help raise your blood pressure:
- Eat small meals more frequently. Large meals may cause more dramatic drops in blood pressure, as your body works harder to digest larger meals.
- Drink more water and limit alcohol. Dehydration lowers blood pressure.
In addition to altering your diet, you may also be able to raise your blood pressure by making these lifestyle changes:
- If you exercise outdoors in extreme heat, take frequent breaks and be sure to increase hydration efforts.
- Avoiding spending long amounts of time in saunas, hot tubs, and steam rooms which can cause dehydration.
- Change body positions slowly.
- Avoid prolonged bed rest.
- Wear compression stockings, which help blood move back upward from your legs and feet. You can purchase them online.
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Can High Blood Pressure Be Prevented Or Avoided
If your high blood pressure is caused by lifestyle factors, you can take steps to reduce your risk:
- Lose weight.
- Reduce your alcohol consumption.
- Learn relaxation methods.
If your high blood pressure is caused by disease or the medicine you take, talk to your doctor. He or she may be able to prescribe a different medicine. Additionally, treating any underlying disease can help reduce your high blood pressure.
Tips For Making Healthy Lifestyle Changes
If you suffer with high blood pressure, its easy to feel intimidated by the changes you need to make in order to improve your health. While some people may only need to work on one or two areas to reduce their blood pressuregetting more exercise or quitting smoking, for examplemost of us find that we need to improve our habits in at least 3 or 4 areas. But even if you smoke, drink heavily, are overweight, stressed out, sedentary, and eat nothing but junk and processed food, that doesnt mean you have to tackle everything all at once. Making lots of different lifestyle changes at the same time can be overwhelming. And when we feel overwhelmed, its easy to opt for doing nothing rather than doing something.
Start gradually and make one or two changes to begin with. Once those changes have become habit, you can tackle one or two more, and so on. For example, you may decide to start by giving up smokingand adopting some relaxation techniques to help with the stress of quittingthen move on to losing weight or improving your diet.
Lose the all or nothing thinking. Doing something, no matter how small, is always better than doing nothing. If youre eating healthy food during the week, for example, then resorting to takeouts at the weekends, your blood pressure and overall health will still be in better shape than if you were eating takeout every day.
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Follow A Healthy Diet
A healthy diet with a variety of nutritious foods, in line with the Australian Dietary Guidelines, will help keep blood pressure under control as well as your cholesterol and weight.
- Eat 5 serves of vegetables and 2 serves of fruit every day.
- Limit your fat intake to 20 to 35% of your total energy intake. Consume healthy unsaturated fats instead of saturated fats.
- Reduce your salt intake to fewer than 4 grams per day if you have high blood pressure. This is less than one teaspoon of salt. Salt contains sodium, which is linked to high blood pressure.
Herbs For Low Blood Pressure
Many herbal supplements and commercial beverages can cause vasoconstriction that elevates blood pressure substantially, which is why people who take medicine for high blood pressure must use caution when taking over-the-counter decongestants and supplements. Even if you are otherwise healthy, you should stop taking any supplement that produces symptoms of hypertension, such as a headache.
To treat symptoms of hypotension with herbs and other substances, try:
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Lifestyle Changes For Low Bp
Eat small meals frequently Consuming smaller and more frequent meals has been known to help with hypotension. This is because smaller and frequent meals reduce the gap between each meal and also keep you filled with the right nutrients, thereby reducing the chances of low blood pressure, as compared to larger and heavier meals.
Increase salt intake A sure shot low BP treatment at home is to increase your salt intake. Salt contains sodium and for people with blood pressure problems, higher sodium intake can be a good solution. Thus, consuming more salt can help raise your blood pressure.
Wear compression stockings The role of compression stockings is to decrease the amount of blood to be constricted to your lower legs and help it to be distributed throughout the body. They can also help to reduce the pressure and pain arising out of varicose veins. You can easily buy them for yourself online.
Dont get up or move around quickly Any sudden or rapid movements can cause problems for someone with low blood pressure. For example, sitting up or standing up quickly can make you feel lightheaded, dizzy, or can even cause you to faint.
Avoid alcohol Alcohol can cause your blood pressure to fall so if you already have low blood pressure, you should avoid any sort of alcoholic beverages.
Drink plenty of water Water helps increase the volume of blood as well as reduce any chances of dehydration. Both of these can help in increasing your blood pressure.
Maintain A Healthy Weight
Being overweight is a risk factor for having high blood pressure, and your risk increases further if you are obese.
There are two ways to check if you are overweight:
- Body Mass Index – This is your weight in kilograms divided by your height in metres squared. In the UK, people with a BMI of between 25 to 30 are overweight, and those with an index above 30 are classed as obese. People with a BMI of 40 or more are morbidly obese.
- Waist size – Using a measuring tape place the tape round your waist between the bottom of your ribs and the top of your hip bone. The table below indicates how much your health might be at risk, your ethnicity should also be taken into account.
| Sex | |
| Over 80 cm |
The best way to tackle obesity is by reducing the amount of calories that you eat, and taking regular exercise. Your GP can provide you with further information and advice on how you can do this.
More about having a healthy weight
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Which Medicines Are Prescribed For High Blood Pressure
Some people will find that lifestyle changes alone wont be enough to control their blood pressure and so they’ll need to take medicines. Often, 2 types of medicines that work in different ways will be needed sometimes more than 2 are necessary.
Blood pressure medicines are typically taken every day. Many people will need to take them for the rest of their lives. The most commonly used blood pressure medicines are ACE inhibitors, angiotensin-receptor blockers, beta blockers, diuretics and calcium channel blockers.
Your doctor will choose the most appropriate medicine for you based on your blood pressure measurements, your overall risk of heart and blood vessel disease, and any other medical conditions you have or medicines that you take. Your doctor may set a target blood pressure.
Your doctor will probably start you on a low dosage of one medicine and review your progress a few weeks later. If you experience any side effects, tell your doctor straight away.
Easy Things You Can Do To Lower Your Blood Pressure
High blood pressure is dangerous. It can lead to many health problems, including heart attack, stroke, heart failure, angina, coronary artery disease, peripheral artery disease, kidney disease, vision loss, sexual dysfunction and more.
Fortunately, high blood pressure can often be prevented or controlled.
Here are some easy things you can do to lower your blood pressure or help prevent high blood pressure in the first place.
Set small, easily attainable goals, and when you reach them, set bigger ones. Step by step, you will take control of your health and your blood pressure.
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Causes Of High Blood Pressure
Theres no single cause of high blood pressure, but rather many contributing factors. Some are out of your control, such as age, race, gender, and family historyblood pressure tends to increase over the age of 70, affects more women than men over the age of 55, and is more common in African Americans than Caucasians, perhaps due to a genetic sensitivity to salt.
Many other risk factors for hypertension are within your control. Being overweight, eating a poor diet high in salt, smoking, drinking excessively, and not getting enough physical exercise can all impact your blood pressure.
There are also specific substances that can raise your blood pressure, such as:
- Caffeine, including coffee, tea, soda, and energy drinks.
- Prescription medications, including some of those used to treat ADHD, birth control pills, corticosteroids, atypical antipsychotics, MAOIs and SNRIs used to treat depression, and some cancer drugs.
- Nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs , such as aspirin and ibuprofen .
- Cough and cold medications containing decongestant or NSAIDs.
- Herbal supplements, such as ephedra and yohimbine.
- Recreational drugs, such as cocaine and methamphetamine.
- Licorice found in some candies and gum.
How To Increase Blood Volume
Dehydration can cause hypotension by literally shrinking the volume of blood circulating throughout your body. Even losing a small percentage of your blood volume to dehydration can cause blood pressure to dip temporarily. Sweating due to physical activity, excessive sun exposure, vomiting, and diarrhea all can cause dehydration that provokes a hypotensive episode.
You can address this type of low blood pressure by:
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Drinking extra water. Make a conscious effort to consume more water until your hypotensive symptoms subside. Be careful not to drink large quantities of water within a short period of time, as this can induce a life-threatening medical condition called water intoxication. The recommended amount of water for an average person aged 8 years and older is 64 ounces a day, but you should drink water as necessary, preferably before you are thirsty.
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Drinking an electrolyte replacement beverage . These beverages contain vital minerals that enable your cells to better take in and retain the water you need to rehydrate.
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Eating a few salty meals or snacks. Salt helps your body retain fluid, so consuming some salty snacks or adding a little salt to a few meals in succession should correct any blood volume deficiency causing you to experience hypotensive symptoms. Eat a small handful of chips after exercising or a long hike to replenish your sodium.
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Lowering Systolic Blood Pressure More May Cut Health Risks
One major study found that lowering systolic blood pressure to well below the commonly recommended level also greatly lowered the number of cardiovascular events and deaths among people at least 50 years old with high blood pressure.
When study participants achieved a systolic blood pressure target of 120 mmHg compared to the higher target of 140 mmHg recommended for most people, and 150 for people over 60 issues such as heart attack, stroke and heart failure were reduced by almost one-third, and the risk of death by almost one-fourth.
“That’s important information, because more lives may be saved and more deaths may be prevented if we maintain lower blood pressure in certain patients,” says Lynne Braun, NP, PhD, a nurse practitioner at the Rush Heart Center for Women.
Braun cautions, however, that your personal blood pressure target depends on a variety of things, including your current blood pressure, lifestyle, risk factors, other medications you are taking and your age. “Every person has to be evaluated as an individual,” she says. “Realistically, we can’t get everybody down to 120, and trying to do so may create unintended problems.”
It can be dangerous, for instance, to keep an older person on medications that have unsafe side effects, such as diuretics , which can cause dehydration and dizziness in older adults.
And there can be other issues involved with taking multiple medications, such as cost and compliance.
Causes And Risk Factors
You may be at an increased risk for high blood pressure if you smoke, areoverweight, eat a diet thats low on produce and fiber and/or high in fatand salt, drink alcohol to excess, live with chronic stress or dont getmuch physical activity. Some causes of hypertension cannot becontrolledincluding your genes and your race . Aging also plays a role. Even if you do not have hypertensionby age 55 to 65, your lifetime risk for developing it is a whopping 90percent.
But doctors no longer consider hypertension inevitable or untreatable withage, saysSamuel Durso, M.D., director of the Division of Geriatric Medicine and Gerontology at JohnsHopkins.
In one Johns Hopkins study of 975 older women and men with hypertension,healthy lifestyle steps helped 40 percent stop taking blood pressuremedications. Other research has shown that lifestyle changes can lower therisk for hypertension in African-Americans and others at an increasedgenetic risk.
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Blood Pressure Checks During Pregnancy
If you are pregnant, you should have your blood pressure checked on a regular basis, even if it is not high.
Watching your blood pressure while you are pregnant reduces your risk of developing pregnancy-induced hypertension. This can lead to a serious condition called pre-eclampsia where there is a problem with the placenta .
How Do I Take Care Of Myself
If you have hypotension with symptoms, the best thing you can do is follow your healthcare provider’s guidance on managing this condition. Their recommendations may include any of the following:
- Manage your diet. Following diet recommendations, especially how much salt you should have in your diet, can help avoid symptoms of hypotension.
- Take your medication. These can help you avoid the disruptive symptoms and effects of this condition.
- Dress up. Compression socks, which put light pressure on your legs and feet, can push blood upward and raise your blood pressure.
- Take it slow. Avoid standing up too quickly, especially with orthostatic hypotension. That can help you avoid the dizziness and fainting effects of hypotension.
- Have a seat. If you notice yourself feeling dizzy or lightheaded, sit down. Falling from standing height can put you at risk for severe or even catastrophic injuries from a fall, such as a broken hip, concussion, skull fracture or broken ribs.
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