Hypertension is a chronic (long-term) medical condition characterized by a persistent increase in blood pressure in our arteries. This is why it is also called High Blood Pressure (HTA). We may have come across it in many literatures as a silent killer! Yes. It sure is one. No one wants to reach the end of life, at least not at an age where there is much work to be done, words left unsaid, and special people unloved. This is where it gets a bit risky. Over 50% of people with hypertension don’t even know they have it! More like an insecure king who dines and dines with a traitor and many times with many more traitors, as we will see in perspective.
Here are some eye-opening epidemiological data to understand what is really at stake here.
Hypertension is generally of two types. A primary type and of course a secondary type. The primary type is caused by nonspecific factors related to lifestyle or genetic predisposition. These factors include, among others, smoking, obesity, high salt intake, sedentary lifestyle, depression and represent more than 95% of all hypertensive people. About the remaining 5% have the secondary type of hypertension that is due to or secondary to known preexisting causes, such as chronic kidney disease, hormonal abnormalities, use of birth control pills, pregnancy, coarctation of the largest artery in the body, the aorta, and stenosis of one or both renal arteries.
Fortunately, hypertension is one of those medical conditions that can be easily prevented and then the right treatments, preventive techniques, and management strategies are used well. This means that there is virtually no way to know your hypertensive status. This is in essence, but in fact it is checking your blood pressure frequently. Hypertension, if left uncontrolled, could cause any of the following:
1. Coronary artery disorder; a disease of the blood vessels that supply the heart itself with nutrients and blood
2. Heart failure
3. Stroke
4. Blindness
5. Chronic kidney disease
6. Peripheral Vascular Disease
7. Multi-organ failure
8. Death
Why should I review my lifestyle?
I would start with those who love salt so much that we even salt our soft drinks, drinking water and bath water. I would have to remember the outbreak of the Ebola virus in Nigeria a few years ago, where different sacrilegious ideas came out of nowhere advising people to chew kola nut with salt water and bathe in salt water. I hope we know that many more people supposedly died from this act than from the disease outbreak itself.
The normal and most amazing attribute of salt in the body’s system is to draw as much water with it as it can. Thus, congesting the blood vessels and making them overloaded with fluid. The heart, in response to this, begins to overwork to compensate for the unnecessary increase in volume it has to pump per cycle. Before you know what is happening, the heart begins to fail until it eventually gives way to stress.
Next is smoking. This is very bad and its medical significance goes beyond hypertension. It is the most important factor for the development of coronary artery disease. Smoking greatly increases the likelihood of long-term hypertension. Its close relative, alcohol, is also a major player in the world of lifestyle-related diseases. Hypertension obtained through one of these is not good, much less combining alcohol and smoking. I can imagine the great wall of Jericho collapsing once more.
Noteworthy is also a very common one that pretty much everyone is guilty of. This is exercise. The standard approach on this is that one should get at least 30 minutes of exercise every day for at least 3 days a week. This is the minimum you are allowed to go. Exercise simply helps your heart improve its function and allows it to cope with a greater workload, except in any case, you may have gotten involved with too much salt or another substance that overloads your blood volume. Also, your heart beats faster and blood flows faster. These and many more are the wonderful effects of exercise on your body.
There is a serious relationship between hypertension and obesity. Obese people usually have an altered metabolism of carbohydrates, proteins and lipids. As such, they usually have a strong tendency to have Diabetes Mellitus and underutilized high blood glucose is just as harmful as salt in the blood. Bad lipids are often deposited on the walls of your arteries, reducing their diameter and restricting blood flow. This is one of the causes of hypertension in the obese; increased peripheral resistance of blood vessels.
Finally, in this episode of your Health column, suffice it to say that what we see is what we eat. Not much needs to be said about this. Eat well, eat smart and eat well!
