Previously, it was assumed that high blood pressure comes by age. Older people tend to have high blood pressure, but in this century, there is a whole new revelation. Now, men even at the age of 30 or 35 can have high blood pressure. An individual is said to have high blood pressure if the blood pressure readings are above 139 on Systolic or 89 on Diastolic

In the past few women use to suffer from hypertension, but current statistics shows shocking figures of how young women are getting hypertension. Women are prone to high blood pressure during pregnancy. In addition, women can also get hypertension when they are on birth control pills.

It is very difficult to establish any definite reasons why someone can get high blood pressure. However, there are underlying reasons that can lead to such condition. You might not have a high pressure all the time. However, Any of the below factors can cause blood pressure to rise. You might have certain symptoms of high blood pressure which indicates that you are having high blood pressure at that moment.

If the underlying condition is identifiable, then it is called Direct Hypertension.

If the underlying cause is non-identifiable, then it is called as essential or primary hypertension.

Measuring Blood Pressure

Image courtesy of Stuart Miles at FreeDigitalPhotos.net

The factors that cause high blood pressure are:

  1. Old age: The human body is affected by the age considerably. The human organs are made of cells. Thus, as the body ages, the cells ages too and the organs do not function properly. Thus leading to lower immunity and high on diseases.
  2. Family history of hypertension: It may happens that the person inherit the hypertension diseases. The only way is to take precautions.
  3. Chronic Kidney Diseases: Kidney diseases can lead to hypertension. If any of the human organ is not working properly, it puts pressure on heart.
  4. Adrenal and thyroid disorder: The medications for thyroid disorder may kick in the hypertension.

The above factors are not in human hands. You cannot overcome old age. There are certain conditions that we inherit from our previous generations. Also, If you are suffering from any above-mentioned diseases (Chronic Kidney Diseases, Adrenal and thyroid disorder), the hypertension is one of the by-product.

However, there are other factors, which can cause hypertension, and are under the control of human:

  1. Smoking: Smoking is injurious to health. This is a known fact. Too much of consumption of nicotine can damage the lining of artery walls thus leading to hypertension. Even, the passive smoking can cause hypertension.
  2. Drinking Alcohol: Alcohol Consumption is good, when it is social. It provide anti oxidants to the body. On the other hand excessive consumption of alcohol can causes lung problem, kidney problem thus affecting your heart.
  3. Drugs: Drugs such ascocaine and amphetamines causes same damage as smoking and alcohol.
  4. Stress: Stree is most dangerous to the heart. Stress releases stress hormones in the blood stream, making our heart pump faster to fight theses hormones thus leading to hypertension.
  5. Overweight & Obesity: You need  more blood if you weigh more, thus making your heart work more than it’s capacity.
  6. Lack of physical exercise: Lack of physical activity causes hypertension since inactive person has higher heart rate compare to the active person. The higher the rate, more work for heart to pump blood, thus leading to hypertension.
  7. Too much salt in diet or eating fatty food: Higher intake of salt causes your body to retain too much of fluid leading to hypertension.

We really do not understand the severity of how these factors contribute in rise of blood pressure. Once you are in high blood pressure zone, the above factors will affect the body drastically. However, proper precautions can keep your blood pressure under control.

As saying goes, “Prevention is better than Cure”

Lifestyle of people is the primary reason for the early onset of  blood pressure diseases. People do not follow any diet regime, no exercise on regular basis, lot of stress, all of these cause diseases. It is high time, that we start looking how to overcome lifestyle diseases, live a healthy life, and show the same path for our coming generations. There are many natural remedies if followed can lower the high blood pressure.