Healthwisery

Essentially, blood pressure is the measure of how hard your heart has to work in order to circulate blood through your body. There are two factors that affect blood pressure: the amount of blood being pumped out of the heart and the amount of resistance as the heart works to pump blood into the general circulation. To understand this better consider this: water running through a narrow hose as opposed through a wider hose. What happens here is that it takes less pressure to pump water into a hose with a large diameter than it does to pump water into a hose with a small one

When at rest, the heart beats about sixty to ninety times per minute. And, with each beat blood is pumped into the arteries which are the pipeline that carries blood throughout the body. Arteries have the ability to expand and contract. An increase in the resistance or volume needs a greater effort by the heart to push the blood forward into the arteries. Over time, the heart, because of increased work may become enlarged and less efficient. Moreover, the arteries may also become damaged because of scarring and loss of elasticity.

If one does not get treatment for high blood pressure, there is the probability that heart disease may occur. Or, there is the risk of getting a stroke, congestive heart failure, and possibly kidney disease. Continue reading ‘High Blood Pressure and the Risk of Heart Disease’ »

When your physician told you that you had high blood pressure did you understand what he was saying. No doubt you heard the numbers defining the levels of your pressure and that they placed you in a category above normal but did you understand what it was all about or did your doctor take the time to explain everything to you. Often being told you have hypertension is quite a traumatic event, not on a par with being told you have cancer or some other life threatening disease, but traumatic nevertheless. Although it can indeed be life threatening. It just never appears as being an imminent threat. We always think we have time which is really crazy because you never know when a heart attack or stroke might hit you especially if you have had it for a while.

It is often only when you get home that it begins to sink in and you begin thinking of all the questions you should have asked at the time. What does this mean? How does that affect me? You know, all those sorts of questions. To help you out here are some of the more common terms used when talking about high blood pressure.

* Hypotension – this means you have low blood pressure.
* Hypertension – this is the same as saying you have high blood pressure and refers to measurements above 140/90.
* Systolic Pressure – systolic pressure is the force, experienced by the walls of your arteries, when the heart beats pushing the blood around your body. This is measured in terms of millimeters of mercury. Continue reading ‘High Blood Pressure – Make Sure You Understand What Your Doctor is Telling You’ »

Blood pressure readings at home are more accurate than readings taken at a doctor’s office when it comes to predicting heart disease. This means that if a doctor only relies in the office readings, many people could be incorrectly treated for mild high blood pressure.

Although doctors have known for almost 50 years of practice that trip to physician or the hospital can cause an inflated blood pressure reading often called white coat hypertension, doctors did not know if these people were at high risk for heart disease than people with normal readings.

Higher office readings are labeled white coat hypertension because the pressure sometimes rises when people feel stressed by a visit to the doctor. According to some studies that 10 to 20 percent of all people with mild hypertension may suffer from white coat hypertension.

However, people with white coat hypertension did not have the heart damage associated with high blood pressure, an enlarged heart and reduced heart function. Continue reading ‘Things You Should Know Before Treating High Blood Pressure’ »

Your race and high blood pressure in medicine and science has been and continues to be presented with the premise that there are inherent physiological differences between races. Race is commonly accepted as one of the risk factors for hypertension.

Additionally, African-Americans and Hispanics are more likely to experience high blood pressure than their Anglo- American counterparts. For African-Americans, elevations in blood pressure happen at an earlier age, is often more severe and more than any other race, are at a higher risk for this life threatening disease.

Race Based Science and Medicine

With the advent of the science of genetics, epidemiology, and other modern biology, perspectives, opinions and research has appeared in respected journals discrediting the notion of race being a risk factor for disease. Despite present-day research, social perceptions and concepts originating from the 18th century – which had no scientific foundation – are readily available on the internet, in the public, in research, in medical school and in practice.

Expanded Perspectives For Risk Factors and Race Continue reading ‘Your Race and High Blood Pressure’ »

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A good friend of mine has high blood pressure which he controls by using prescribed medication. I see him down the local club about three nights a week for a few pints of beer and a couple of games of snooker. I always know when he’s going to have his pressure taken the following morning because he cuts his alcohol intake down to one pint.

He does it because he’s afraid that if his pressure is high his doctor will increase the dosage of his medication! Who is he trying to fool? Only himself. If he were to adopt a sensible approach and eat a healthy diet and get some regular exercise he would probably be able to cut down, or even eliminate, the medication that he’s already taking… and still be able to enjoy a few pints of beer.

The moral of this true story is quite simply that if you have high blood pressure you owe it to yourself (and nobody else) to lower it. After all, it really is your life in your hands, because if the condition is left untreated it can have dire consequences. Continue reading ‘Start Lowering Your High Blood Pressure Today’ »

Blood pressure(BP) as the name suggests is the force of blood against arterial walls. A normal adult is below 120/80. High pressure has been defined as over 140/90. Hypertension or high blood pressure is a major risk factor for the development of cardiovascular diseases, which are the leading causes of morbidity and mortality in western society. It is estimated that 20% of the world’s adult population suffers from hypertension. Hypertension (high blood pressure) is a primary risk factor for heart disease, which affects 25% of the U.S. population and is a major contributor to stroke and heart failure.

Aging is one of the reasons for high blood pressure as arteries loose elasticity. Blood pressure is also controlled by a number of metabolic systems including the major pathway called the renin-angiotensin system (RAS). In the kidneys, this sytem secretes an enzyme called angiotension-converting enzyme (ACE). This results in blood vessel constriction and elevated blood pressure. Inhibitors of the ACE enzyme in blood vessels are a major class of antihypertensive medications that are prescribed to control high blood pressure. Individuals with high blood pressure are often prescribed drugs such as Zestril, Capoten and Vasotec, which block the effects of ACE and thus bring in control the high blood pressure.

However, several adverse side effects such as hypotension, reduced kidney function, coughing and skin rashes have been associated with synthetic ACE inhibitors. Natural inhibitors of ACE have been identified in a variety of food proteins. In particular, milk proteins contain ACE inhibitory peptides (ACE-IP) that can be released by enzymatic hydrolysis either during gastrointestinal digestion or during food processing. It is well established that in vitro incubation of milk proteins with the gastrointestinal proteases pepsin, trypsin and chymotrypsin results in the release of ACE-IP. Hence, it is likely that ACE-IP is generated during normal gastrointestinal digestion. Bacterial and plant proteins can also be used to release ACE-IP. Therefore, hydrolysates of milk protein, caseinates, whey proteins and fractions enriched in individual milk proteins are potentially good sources of ACE-IP. Continue reading ‘Dietary Proteins Can Lower Blood Pressure’ »