Understanding High Blood Pressure
Everyone has high blood pressure. Your heart, pushing the blood through the blood vessels, through your body, creates the pressure. Pressure is needed to get blood around your body.Your blood pressure can go up and down during the day, depending on what you are doing and how you are feeling. People have high blood pressure when their blood pressure is constantly higher than is needed, even when they are relaxed and sitting quietly. About 40% of people at retiring age have high blood pressure.
People at Risk
You are at higher risk of having high blood pressure if you:
- Have other family members that have high blood pressure
- Are overweight, don’t exercise
- Have too much salt in your diet
- Take the oral contraceptive pill
- Take certain medicines
- Drink too much alcohol
If high blood pressure is not detected early enough andtreated it can lead to:
- Stroke: a blood vessel supplying a part of the brain is blocked or leaks
- Heart attack: a narrowed blood supplying the heart is totally blocked
- Heart failure:- heart becomes exhausted and can’t keep the blood circulating
- Kidney damage
- Eye damage
- If you smoke, you are more likely to have these problems
Signs & Symptoms
Usually there are no symptoms of high blood pressure until the continued pressure damages certain organs. This can happen after years of having high blood pressure. Having your blood pressure checked every 1 – 2 years could detect high blood pressure before any damage is done. When your blood pressure is measured, your reading will include two numbers eg. “120 over 80”. These refer to the systolic (“120”) and diastolic (“80”) blood pressure. Systolic blood pressure is the pressure inside the blood vessels when the heart pumps blood through the body. Diastolic blood pressure is the pressure inside the blood vessels in between heart beats, when the heart is resting.
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