Without treatment, high blood pressure can lead to disability, poor quality of life, or even a fatal heart attack or stroke. Many factors increase the risk of high blood pressure. You can change some risk factors, such as unhealthy lifestyle habits. A healthy lifestyle can reduce the risk of developing high blood pressure. High blood pressure increases the risk of stroke and heart disease, the leading causes of disability and premature death.
This will include the lifestyle changes listed on the previous page, which are also useful for treating high blood pressure. More than 90 percent of patients with hypertension do well with antihypertensive medications if they follow the doctor's instructions. It's important to note that you can have high blood pressure even if you feel well because it usually doesn't cause symptoms. It's especially useful for people who have experienced “white coat hypertension,” which is defined as anxiety in a doctor's office that causes abnormally high blood pressure that's otherwise normal if measured outside of a medical setting.
If you have a family history of high blood pressure, especially if both of your parents have it, it's likely that you'll have high blood pressure at some point in your life. Lowering high blood pressure prevents heart attacks, strokes, and kidney damage, as well as other health problems. Hypertension, or high blood pressure, is a condition that increases pressure within blood vessels (veins and arteries).If you don't think you're making progress in controlling your high blood pressure, talk to your doctor. Communication is the key to success.
In a Johns Hopkins study involving 975 older women and men with hypertension, healthy lifestyle measures helped 40 percent stop taking blood pressure medications. Cases of high blood pressure or hypertension, a silent but dangerous condition, have skyrocketed in the last decade. In addition, there are environmental risk factors for hypertension and associated diseases, in which air pollution is the most important. High blood pressure can also burst or block the arteries that supply blood and oxygen to the brain and cause a stroke.
Some causes of high blood pressure can't be controlled, including genes and race (African-Americans are at greater risk). The World Health Organization (WHO) helps countries reduce hypertension as a public health problem. If left untreated, high blood pressure can cause other health problems, such as kidney disease, heart disease, and stroke. Although not a specific risk factor, uncontrolled stress influences poor lifestyle choices that can lead to high blood pressure.
