What is blood pressure (BP)?
Blood pressure is the force with which blood flows in your blood vessels.
If you have ever had your blood pressure checked by a doctor, you might have noticed that there are two numbers separated by a slash (/) example 120/80 mmHg (millimetres of mercury).
When your heart beats, it pushes the blood through the blood vessels. This exerts a pressure in the blood called as systolic blood pressure. It is the first value recorded while writing BP. Immediately after a beat, vessels relax. Pressure during this time is called diastolic blood pressure and is recorded as the second number in BP. In above example, 120 is systolic and 80 is diastolic BP.
What is hypertension?
Hypertension means high blood pressure. It is diagnosed when your systolic blood pressure is >140 mmHg and/or diastolic blood pressure is >88mm Hg.
What are the causes of hypertension?
- Essential/ Primary- In about 95% patients there is no cause of high blood pressure. It results from interaction of genes and environmental factors like aging, obesity, lack of exercise, stress, depression, excess salt intake etc.
- Secondary- In the rest 5% patients, high blood pressure can be due to some diseases like-
- Endocrine diseases- example pheochromocytoma (excess hormones called catecholamines), primary aldosteronism (excess hormone called aldosterone), cushing’s syndrome (excess cortisol), acromegaly (excess growth hormone), hyperparathyroidism (excess parathyroid hormone), hyperthyroidism (high thyroid hormone levels) etc
- Kidney disease- patients having vescular disease involving kidneys or chronic kidney disease are predisposed to developing high blood pressure.
- Heart disease like coarctation of aorta.
What are the risks of high blood pressure?
When your blood pressure is high, your heart has to work more to push blood. So it puts your heart at risk. High blood pressure increases the risk of many diseases like heart attack, diabetes, stroke and in diabetics it leads to worsening of eye and kidney disease.
What are the symptoms of high blood pressure?
Beware!! High blood pressure may be asymptomatic ( not producing any symptoms) in as many as 50% patients having it. So, it is very important to get it checked from a doctor in every visit if you have diabetes, heart disease or high cholesterol and if you don’t have any disease then get it checked at least once in every 2 years.
In the rest 50% patients with high blood pressure, it can produce headache, giddiness, sometimes blurring of vision and vomitings if its very high.
How do I control my blood pressure?
- Reduce salt intake in your diet. Best way is to avoid added salt in your diet for example avoid salt in curd, salad, avoid pickles, salted lassi etc.
- Loose weight
- Stop smoking
- Reduce alcohol intake
- Take regular medicines as suggested by your doctor.
Remember- You wont be able to control your blood pressure without medicine in most of the cases. So even if you don’t have any symptoms, continue taking medicines if you have been suggested by your doctor.
