High blood pressure is a very common health problem, but what exactly is it and what symptoms does it produce? What are its causes and what medical treatment helps control it?
Also known as arterial hypertension, it is a disease that directly affects the heart, without a doubt, a fundamental organ for life. Basically, its function is to pump the blood with oxygen through the blood vessels, leading it to the different organs of the body.
When alterations occur in the pressure levels that pump blood to the tissues, the so-called cardiovascular diseases occur, namely: arterial hypertension and hypotension.
High blood pressure is a chronic, highly dangerous disease that consists of elevated blood pressure, that is, an abnormal increase in the rhythm of blood pumping; For this reason, if it is not diagnosed and treated in time, it can trigger and cause other serious diseases, for example: myocardial infarction, hemorrhage or cerebral thrombosis.
Currently, high blood pressure has become one of the main causes of death in developed countries, mostly caused by poor eating habits and the sedentary lifestyle that characterizes these societies.
What are the symptoms of high blood pressure?
One of the greatest risk factors that people who suffer from this disease run is that it can go unnoticed in the body for a long period of time, since, in most cases, clear and specific symptoms do not appear that allow the people recognize their condition and go to a health care center in time to provide the appropriate treatment.
However, there are certain “alerts” that may be associated with irregular elevations in blood pressure, such as: headaches, dizziness, nausea and vomiting, chest pain, vision changes and nose bleeds.
It has happened on frequent occasions that this “silent killer” is discovered by chance when the patient goes to the doctor for a routine check-up or goes to the health care center due to the presence of any of the aforementioned symptoms.
What are the causes of high blood pressure?
Until now the exact causes of this disease are unknown, but as a result of various studies carried out and the coincidences between the cases, two large groups of very common causes can be distinguished: modifiable and non-modifiable.
The non-modifiable causes are related to various factors, among them we have:
- The sex of the individual: for reasons of genetic predisposition, the male sex is more likely to suffer from high blood pressure than the female, because women produce certain hormones that help them control blood pressure, until they reach the age of menopause.
- Genetic factors: it has been proven that the tendency to develop hypertension is due, in most cases, to a history of hypertensive ascending relatives.
- Ethnic conditions and age: The genetic predisposition that dark-skinned people have to suffer from high blood pressure is frequent. As well as, the passage of time generates greater probabilities of suffering from this disease, we affirm this taking into account that the largest number of hypertensive population is in advanced ages.
Modifiable causes:
This section includes overweight and obesity. Overweight people generally have a greater predisposition to suffer from changes in blood pressure as a result of eating foods with a high caloric content, but this factor can be reduced by adopting good eating habits, in addition to a regulated practice of cardiovascular exercise.
Treatment and prevention
The treatment used to improve the quality of life of hypertensive individuals and reduce their risk of mortality is feasible if the proper use of the drugs prescribed by the health specialist is carried out, but it is also essential to make important changes in lifestyle. Life of people, especially those who are sedentary.
Mainly, special attention should be paid to food; this should be based on a balanced diet and the consumption of low-fat foods such as vegetables, legumes and certain fruits, eliminating the intake of foods that contain saturated fats, such as junk food and sweets.
Similarly, a daily routine of physical exercises should be included to help the body improve its conditions in general and, of course, reduce high blood pressure.
