High blood pressure is a common but extremely dangerous chronic disease because it silently threatens the health and life of the sufferer. What is the cause of high blood pressure, what are the signs of high blood pressure? Let’s find out through the following article.
Hypertension is a phenomenon that occurs when blood pressure against the artery walls is higher than normal levels. What is high blood pressure? When the blood pressure index at the time of measurement is systolic blood pressure > 140mmHg and/or diastolic blood pressure >= 90mmHg, you have high blood pressure. In addition, you can also recognize the disease through the signs of high blood pressure mentioned below. Detecting signs of high blood pressure early is an effective way to prevent dangerous complications such as stroke.
1, Causes of high blood pressure
In adults, the majority of cases of high blood pressure have no known cause (primary hypertension), with only about 10% of cases having a cause (secondary hypertension).
The specialist will use history, clinical examination and routine paraclinical results to find the cause of high blood pressure. Especially in cases of high blood pressure, the cause needs to be found, including high blood pressure at a young age (<30 years old), resistant high blood pressure, progressive or malignant high blood pressure. Recognizing the signs of high blood pressure is important to get timely treatment.
With secondary hypertension, some of the following causes are common:
- Acute/chronic kidney disease, including acute/chronic glomerulonephritis, interstitial nephritis, kidney stones, polycystic kidneys, hydronephrosis, renal failure;
- Renal artery stenosis;
- Pheochromocytoma;
- Primary Hyperaldosteronism (Conn’s Syndrome);
- Cushing’s syndrome;
- Thyroid/parathyroid disease, pituitary gland;
- Due to drugs, related to drugs (Non-steroid anti-inflammatory drugs, birth control pills, corticosteroids, …);
- Toxemia of pregnancy;
- Mental factors.
2, Signs of high blood pressure
High blood pressure is an extremely dangerous chronic disease because it can cause myocardial infarction, stroke, and even death for the patient. You need to check your blood pressure regularly to find out early whether you have high blood pressure or not. People who have relatives who also have high blood pressure should have their blood pressure measured more often.
Here are some signs of high blood pressure you need to pay attention to:
- Headache;
- Nosebleed;
- Blood stains in the eyes or conjunctival hemorrhage;
- Numbness or tingling of the limbs;
- Nausea and vomiting;
- Lightheadedness and dizziness;
- Heart attack.
In addition to the above signs of high blood pressure, hypertension can occur suddenly, without any symptoms.
3, Subjects susceptible to high blood pressure
Some people are at high risk of developing high blood pressure, including:
- Age: The older you are, the greater the risk of high blood pressure, especially people aged 45 and over.
- Family history: If someone in your family has high blood pressure, your risk of developing this disease will increase.
- Overweight and obesity: Weight is a risk factor for high blood pressure.
- Lazy exercise: Compared to people who regularly exercise, sedentary people tend to have higher heart rates, leading to higher blood pressure. Besides, lack of exercise also increases the risk of being overweight.
- Smoking: Smoking both temporarily increases blood pressure and contributes to the destruction of blood vessel walls because of the countless chemicals in cigarette smoke introduced into the body. When the arteries are narrowed, there is a high risk of cardiovascular disease.
- Eat a lot of salt: Regularly consuming a diet high in salt will cause your body to retain water, causing high blood pressure. Besides, if your diet lacks potassium, it is not good for your health because potassium has the ability to help balance the amount of sodium in the body.
- Drink a lot of beer and wine: In addition to cigarettes, stimulants in alcohol also cause high blood pressure and increase the risk of cardiovascular disease due to blood pressure.
- Stress: A stressful and tiring life and job can easily cause you to have temporary high blood pressure.
- Having chronic diseases: Some chronic diseases such as kidney disease, diabetes, sleep apnea, etc. also have the risk of causing high blood pressure.
4, Complications caused by high blood pressure
As mentioned above, high blood pressure is very dangerous for health because it occurs silently in the body. If you don’t clearly understand the signs of high blood pressure to control it early and keep it stable, high blood pressure will lead to the following complications:
- Heart attack, stroke: High blood pressure will cause hardening and thickening of blood vessel walls (atherosclerosis), leading to heart attacks, strokes and many other complications;
- Aneurysm: High blood pressure also causes vessel walls to weaken and bulge, forming an aneurysm.
- Heart failure: High blood pressure causes high pressure in the vessel walls, so the heart has to work harder to pump blood against it, leading to left ventricular hypertrophy, which can lead to heart failure.
- Kidney failure: High blood pressure can cause narrowing of the renal arteries;
- Retinal hemorrhage;
- Metabolic syndrome, such as increased waist circumference, increased triglycerides, decreased HDL-C (good cholesterol), high insulin levels… This easily makes you suffer from diabetes, heart disease, stroke;
- Brain complications, such as stroke, cerebral hemorrhage, cerebral infarction, dementia.
Treatment of hypertension
Regularly measuring your blood pressure and paying attention to signs of high blood pressure will help you limit complications caused by high blood pressure.
Note that hypertension is a chronic disease, so you must regularly monitor it for a long time and treat it correctly and adequately every day. Patients can be treated with medication as prescribed by the doctor, combined with lifestyle changes and a suitable diet to prevent disease progression and complications.
Below are some ways to treat high blood pressure at home using lifestyle changes in the treatment of hypertension that you can refer to:
- Reasonable diet: Diet ensures enough potassium and trace elements, reduces salt intake, adds green vegetables and fresh fruits, limits foods high in cholesterol and saturated fatty acids.
- Control weight, maintain ideal weight (men need to keep waist circumference below 90cm and below 80cm for women).
- Limiting alcohol intake; quit smoking.
- Increase physical activity, such as exercising, walking or moving at a moderate level, it is important to maintain it regularly for about 30 – 60 minutes/day.
- Avoid anxiety, nervous tension, and rest properly.
- Avoid sudden cold.
- Treat diseases that cause high blood pressure.
Hypertension occurs silently, has few symptoms but can cause serious complications. Therefore, recognizing the signs of high blood pressure early will make treatment simpler. You should also know the signs of low blood pressure to ensure your health.
