What Is Hypertension And Its Causes?
Medically Reviewed By
Dr Divya Rohra
Written By Komal Daryani
on May 5, 2022
Last Edit Made By Komal Daryani
on Feb 29, 2024
Do you know less than half of the adults, i.e., 42% of the worldwide population, are diagnosed with hypertension?
Also, a recent study reported that 1 out of 5 adults suffers from hypertension, a condition that increases the risk of developing heart disease, brain disease, kidney disease, and other health issues.
So, what is hypertension? What is high blood pressure? What are the causes of it? Let us discuss this more in detail;
What Is Hypertension?
Hypertension is a diseased condition in which your blood pressure is consistently high. It means the pressure of blood pushing against the walls of your arteries is constantly high, which causes your heart to work harder to pump blood around your body.
Even though your blood pressure rises and falls throughout the day as per the surrounding environment and activities, if the rise in your blood pressure is consistently too high, perhaps it could be a sign of hypertension or high blood pressure, ignoring it can lead to heart and circulatory diseases such as heart attacks, strokes, and heart failure.
How To Measure High Blood Pressure?
Blood pressure is measurable in two terms, i.e., systolic pressure and diastolic pressure. Systolic pressure is the force exerted on the blood vessel walls when blood pumps by the heart, and diastolic pressure is the pressure generated when the heart relaxes between beats.
Normal blood pressure is measured by systolic pressure over diastolic pressure. Relatively, normal systolic pressure is 120 mmHg, and diastolic pressure is 80 mm Hg. The ideal reading of your blood pressure varies depending on your age and is determined by your health care provider.
To diagnose high blood pressure, a single measurement of blood pressure is not reliable. Typically, multiple readings are taken on different days and, even if they are consistently high, a diagnosis of high blood pressure is made.
Usually, high blood pressure is diagnosed when systolic blood pressure readings on different days are more than 140 mmHg, and diastolic blood pressure is greater than 90 mmHg.
What Causes High Blood Pressure?
In most cases, the cause of high blood pressure is unknown, and this type of high blood pressure comes under essential or primary hypertension where there are no typical causes. Around 95% of the population comes under this category.
Although the causes of high blood pressure are not known, some risk factors are known to increase blood pressure These include:-
-
- Lack of physical activity
- Cigarettes smoking
- Excessive alcohol consumption
- Consumption of tobacco and other addictive compounds
- Excessive sodium or table salt in the diet
- Oral contraceptives or hormone therapy
- Continuous exposure to long-term steroids
- Age over 65 years
- Family history of having high blood pressure
- African Ethnicity are more prone to high blood pressure
Secondly, hypertension that results from an underlying illness or factor is called secondary hypertension. It accounts for a total of 5% of the hypertensive population.
Some Examples Are Listed Below For Secondary Hypertension:
- Kidney disease - Impairs the body's filtration system, increasing blood pressure and volume of blood.
- Heart diseases- affect the contraction and relaxation of the heart, i.e., pumping of the heart, thus increasing blood pressure.
- Arteriosclerosis
- Diabetes mellitus- affects kidneys, the heart, and the stretching power of the vessels, resulting in high blood pressure.
- Thyroid disorders- any thyroid disorder either increases in thyroid hormone or decreases in it both causes increase in blood pressure.
- Pregnancy- During pregnancy, hormonal and metabolic changes may lead to elevated blood pressure.
What Are The Symptoms Of High Blood Pressure?
High blood pressure is a silent killer, which doesn't exempt some key signs and symptoms. HBP only becomes evident during a routine health checkup. Also, it is possible to have high blood pressure for many years without realizing it.
So, some of the symptoms of high blood pressure include:
- Headache
- Dizziness
- Frequent nosebleed
But, if you are suffering from severe high blood pressure, it shows symptoms like:
- Excess fatigue
- Nausea and vomiting
- Anxiety
- Confusion
- Chest pain, and
- Muscle tremors
What Are The Management & Prevention Of High Blood Pressure?
Management and prevention of high blood pressure are essential to decrease the chances of heart diseases, kidney dysfunction, and other diseased conditions. For managing and prevent high blood pressure, some lifestyle changes can play a crucial role. Below are some of the recommendations: -
- To help manage your blood pressure, it is necessary to limit the sodium (dietary salt) to less than 5g daily.
- You should consume low-fat and fruit, vegetable, and whole-grain foods that can help you to lower your blood pressure.
- Limit the intake of foods high in saturated fats like butter, ghee, coconut oil, cakes, biscuits, fatty cuts of meat, cheese, etc.
- Eliminate trans fats in the diet like baked sweets, pies, microwave popcorn, fried foods, etc.
- Do regular exercise. It can help you maintain an optimal healthy weight and lower your blood pressure.
- You are relatively more at risk of high blood pressure if you are overweight or obese, so it is vital to maintain a healthy weight.
- Limit your alcohol consumption.
- Avoid smoking as it raises your blood pressure and puts you at higher risk for heart attacks and strokes.
- To manage high blood pressure, it is relatively necessary to manage stress as well.
What Are The Complications Of Hypertension?
Long-term and uncontrolled hypertension can cause considerable damage to the health.
High blood pressure causes the arteries to narrow due to the hardening of the walls. This narrowing of blood vessels worsens the situation as it becomes hard for the heart to pump the blood effectively and decreases the flow of blood and oxygen to the heart and other body parts.
As a result of the elevated blood pressure and reduced circulation, it can lead to serious health problems;
- Atherosclerosis- As the result of uncontrolled high blood pressure, the blood vessels begin to harden and narrow, leading to atherosclerosis.
- Chest Pain- bUncontrolled high blood pressure affects blood circulation, which in turn causes pain.
- Heart Attack- High blood pressure leads to hardening and thickening of arteries (atherosclerosis), causing a high risk of heart attacks.
- Heart Failure- High blood pressure exerts constant pressure on the walls of the arteries, and it makes your heart work harder to pump the blood. Thus, with time the wall of the heart and blood vessels thickens and has trouble pumping enough blood to meet the body's needs, leading to heart failure.
- Kidney Failure- Uncontrolled high blood pressure leads to narrowing, hardening, and weakening arteries around the kidney that hampers the blood circulation and eventually leads a kidney failure.
- Stroke- Unmanaged high blood pressure damages the arteries around your brain, making them more likely to rupture or clog and then interrupt the brain tissue to get proper oxygen and nutrients. Ultimately, all this results in the death of brain cells, i.e., stroke.
- Eye Damage- A lack of blood flow to the retina because of narrowing the arteries due to high blood pressure leads to blurred vision or the loss of sight.
- Dementia- Uncontrolled hypertension limits blood flow to your brain by causing narrowing and hardening the arteries resulting in memory loss, problems solving, and other brain-related symptoms termed dementia.
- Uncontrolled high blood pressure can also lead to sudden death due to an irregular heartbeat.
What Can We Do To Help You Deal With High Blood Pressure?
To find out the underlying cause of high blood pressure and to evaluate the status of body organs such as the kidneys, liver before starting your drug therapy, routine diagnostic tests are always necessary.
As a pathological lab, Redcliff Life Diagnostics provides all the needed diagnostic tests.
The list of tests that are needed before starting drug therapy and to monitor drug therapy in hypertension are:
- Blood Cell Count
- Renal Function Test includes Urea, Blood Urea Nitrogen, Creatinine, Uric Acid, Calcium, Phosphorus, Sodium, Potassium, Chloride, BUN/Creatinine Ratio, Urea/Creatinine Ratio to rule out kidney function.
- Fasting Blood Glucose & HbA1c to regulate the blood glucose level.
- Thyroid Profile Test to detect and monitor thyroid dysfunction
- Lipid Profile Test to determine total cholesterol, triglycerides, high-density lipoprotein cholesterol, low-density lipoprotein cholesterol, their ratio to assess the risk of atherosclerosis
- Depending on your condition, you might also undergo other tests as per your healthcare professional
Conclusion
High blood pressure is a silent killer and a leading risk factor for heart disorders. Since high blood pressure is a silent killer, with relatively few symptoms, most people are unaware of the problem, which leads to no management and raises the risk of heart, kidney, and brain diseases.
To prevent these serious risk factors of high blood pressure and stay healthy, it is necessary to have a routine full body health checkup and measure blood pressure regularly.
Disclaimer:The blog content has been posted as a piece of information and awareness only. The content provided in this blog, or in any linked materials, are not proposed and should not be taken as medical advice. Redcliffe Labs strongly recommends users to consult with their health care providers to make any medical or health-related decision.
