What are the biggest causes of high blood pressure?

What are the biggest causes of high blood pressure?

• Being severely overweight or obese. It stands to reason that the larger your body mass, the harder your heart has to work to pump blood around it. As a result, pressure on artery walls increases as more blood is produced to deliver the necessary oxygen and nutrients through your larger than average body mass.

• Sleep apnea - brief periods in which you stop breathing while sleeping - is also considered a contributing factor to high blood pressure and is something that obese people are particularly susceptible to.

• Activity level may also be a contributing factor. When you are relatively inactive or not moving, this tends to increase your heart rate, meaning your heart works harder to pump blood throughout the body. And of course it follows that if you're completely sedentary and don't exercise, that's likely to make your weight problems worse too.

• Family history or genetics. It is a fact that high blood pressure can often run in certain families, with the condition occurring from generation to generation. Therefore, if you have a family history of high blood pressure, it is very likely that you have a similar problem.

• Tobacco use. Certain chemicals in cigarettes and tobacco themselves can damage the walls of blood vessels, increasing the work of your heart to pump blood throughout your body.

• Stress can be a major contributor to high blood pressure.

• Sodium intake. Excessive sodium intake can lead to increased fluid retention, which in turn leads to increased blood pressure.

• Potassium absorption. Ingesting excessively low levels of potassium can lead to increased sodium levels in the body's cells as potassium and sodium seek a natural balance in these cells. So if you are on the rise, your characteristics are easier to recognize.

• Excessive alcohol consumption can increase the risk of heart problems, especially if this excessive consumption continues over a long period of time.

Secondary hypertension problems are generally caused by pre-existing conditions such as renal stenosis or another form of kidney disease or heart problems such as aortic coarctation.

Therefore, in the case of secondary hypertension, it is likely that the condition that caused your high blood pressure is already being treated, and part of that treatment will likely focus on treating your blood pressure problems.

Although this cannot be said to reduce the severity of high blood pressure problems caused by secondary hypertension, it does suggest that these problems are much more likely to be treated effectively. Finally, as suspected, a primary hypertension problem is the fact that many millions of people have high blood pressure and are not even aware of it.

This is obviously not the case if someone has secondary hypertension due to another serious condition. Therefore, it is very likely that her blood pressure problem is under control.

Inspired by Dr Olusola A Coker Ed.D