Red Alert: Hypertension

By: Zoha Rehman

High blood pressure is something we may all of heard off. But what that exactly mean? In a nutshell, increase in blood flow to the heart, the narrower the arteries thus increase in blood pressure. Hypertension has serious consequences when untreated such as strokes and heart attacks. Good news is that high blood pressure is easy to identify and can be managed. The scary thing is people can go years with high blood pressure without any obvious symptoms. If you know you have hypertension and start having headaches, nosebleeds, having a hard time breathing you need to contact a doctor as soon as possible.

When we go to the doctor’s office, our blood pressure is taken. However this is something we need to be checking often, especially if you have high blood pressure make a log and note down your blood pressure every time it’s checked. There are public blood pressure machines like in pharmacies. If you have high blood pressure, it’s a good investment to buy a blood pressure machine. At the end of the day health is wealth.

High Blood pressure can be caused by:

  • Thyroid problems
  • Diet pills
  • Birth control pills
  • Kidney problems
  • Tumors of adrenal gland
  • Alcohol abuse
  • Obese
  • Lack of exercise
  • A lot of salt in food
  • Tobacco
  • Not enough Vitamin D in diet
  • Not enough Potassium in diet
  • Stress

As we get older, we are more prone to high blood pressure. High blood pressure can develop earlier in African Americans then in Caucasians. High blood pressure can be heredity. However, we can control high blood pressure by actively care what we eat, medications and working out.