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If suspect that you or someone you love might have high blood pressure, you may be feeling anxious and nervous. It can be a serious condition, but with a little bit of basic knowledge about it, you can begin to feel more comfortable and make a clear decision as to what you would like to do about it.

When thinking about this condition, which is also called hypertension, it is important to know a little bit about blood pressure. Your heart pumps your blood through your body at powerful rate, but when the pressure that is used to power the blood is too strong, this results in high blood pressure.

When you suffer from hypertension, it means that your heart and your arteries need to work harder. Over an extended period of time, hypertension greatly increases the chance of a heart attack, a stroke, kidney problems or one of a number of other issues.

Any medical professional can diagnose this disease. Usually, an inflatable cuff will be placed around your arm and the flow of your blood will be measured with a meter.

To better understand the reading that you are given, it is important to know that normal pressure of your blood is 120/80. What this means is that your blood pressure measures at 120 mmHg during a heart beat and 80 mmHG when your heart is at rest. A constant reading that comes out at 140/90 or above is considered indicative of high blood pressure.

If you have hypertension, you are certainly not alone! Almost one third of all Americans suffer from it and most of them don’t know it. Because this condition has no symptoms, it may not be discovered until the damage is done, that is, until heart disease, strokes and kidney failures.

This is the reason that appointments for checkups should be made yearly; every normal checkup will include a blood pressure reading and this can prevent serious problems further down the line. If identified early on, high blood pressure can be treated with a change in lifestyle, or with medication.

If high blood pressure runs in your family, it will definitely be worth your time to take steps to prevent it from happening to you. Maintaining a healthy weight and living an active lifestyle are both ways that you can prevent hypertension, as is having a healthy diet that is rich in fruits, vegetables, and low sodium foods. Having a low alcohol intake is linked to having healthy blood pressure, as is a diet that features low-fat dairy products.

Hypertension can be a difficult thing to deal with, but once you have some information on the issue, you can make reasoned decisions on the choices in front of you.

About the Author: Alex Olson wrote a number of highly popular articles which concern health problems. In them she pays much attention on high blood pressure or hypertension.
Source: http://www.articlesbase.com

Over 80 percent of patients who suffer from high blood pressure do not necessarily know that their blood pressure is high as the symptoms are often confused with the more general headaches, the lack of fitness or the common cold. Over the years, high blood pressure has been known as the “silent killer” because the causes of high blood pressure are hard to pinpoint and trace. Millions of people are completely oblivious to the fact that they have been having high blood pressure for years and just leave it undetected and untreated. When this condition continues, it could cause severe damage to your internal vital organs, slowly leading to a fatal condition by which time it is too late to take any meaningful treatment. Therefore, it cannot be stressed enough the importance of having an annual medical check up to ensure your blood pressure is within a healthy range.

There is a correlation between high blood pressure and heart attacks, as well as a stroke. When the high blood pressure is left untreated, the risk of a heart attack or a stroke is significantly increased. As more research is done on identifying the causes of high blood pressure, one of the latest theories is based around the fact that it is the brain, not necessarily your heart that is causing the high blood pressure. Intrigued? In 2007, a team of British scientists discovered that a defect in a protein located in the brain of lab rats caused the area of the brain that is responsible for regulating blood pressure in the body to be blocked. This caused an elevated blood pressure in the lab rats. While we cannot discount the possibility that certain conditions or defects of the heart could contribute to increased blood pressure, it is interesting to see the latest scientific analysis that purport to show the brain could also cause blood pressure to rise.

Believe it or not bearing a child during pregnancy can also cause high blood pressure. This is one of the more known causes of high blood pressure, also known as hypertension. It has been proven in scientific studies that link pregnancy to the development of hypertension in about 1 out of every 10 pregnant ladies. Left unnoticed and untreated it could have devastating effects on the pregnancy and could also cause potential complications for the expecting mother. It is therefore very important to seek immediate medical attention from the doctor to deal with this hypertension of pregnancy. Unfortunately doctors are not able to prevent the unavoidable high blood pressure that a child can cause after they are born.

Another commonly known cause of high blood pressure is the dilating or narrowing of arteries surrounding your heart that can significantly affect a person’s blood pressure. These conditions will need to be further tested to determine the exact problem and it is not uncommon this will result in surgery to correct the condition. Whatever the circumstances, it is vital that you treat high blood pressure very seriously and give it the attention it requires to avoid causing more damage to other internal organs.

About the Author: For more great articles and advice about High Blood Pressure, please visit High Blood Pressure Advice.
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High blood pressure and dizziness what’s the real story? Well ironically dizziness in relation to blood pressure probably has more in common with low pressure than actually high blood pressure.

That being said it could be a serious problem and in many ways the fact that you’re suffering from dizziness and potential drops in blood pressure are probably more important than the levels to which the blood pressure drops to so it is extremely important to get to the bottom of it if it is indeed a regular occurrence.

If you are suffering from dizziness and have correspondingly have been diagnosed with high blood pressure then it could indicate a whole series of events, all of which will need to be investigated by your doctor or healthcare practitioner. This last point cannot be stressed too heavily enough as there are too many occasions in relation to medical conditions where people place too much emphasis on common folklore or old wives tales as opposed to getting the correct medical advice from experts.

If you suffer from high blood pressure then by all means listen to other sufferers and people in general but don’t ever make the mistake of ignoring the advice of professionals - it could be fatal to be the last mistake you ever make.

I make no apologies if I sound too dramatic but high blood pressure is serious and as such has to retreat it as such.

Back to high blood pressure and dizzy spells however. These could be as a result of the number of things none of which in isolation could be that serious but they could be little indicators of potentially something more serious further down the line.

Usually dizzy spells occur as a result of changes in your blood pressure from moving from low blood pressure to high blood pressure namely when you first get up in the morning as it is a known medical fact that your blood pressure is usually lowest at night and rises sharply upon waking. Conversely you could suffer dizzy spells when your blood pressure drops sharply as a result of dehydration, blood loss, allergic reaction, postural hypotension, namely some people suffer from dizzy spells when they change posture if they have been in one position for a long time. The dizzy spells could be brought about by what is called postprandial hypotension; this is usually an occurrence that affects older adults with high blood pressure or what could be best described as autonomic nervous system disorders such as Parkinson’s disease and basically occurs after meals.

Lastly in certain cases dizziness could be caused by neurally mediated hypotension and by this I mean this usually occurs in young people in these usually calls because of a miscommunication between the high and the brain which leads to dizziness and nausea painting as a result of standing for long periods.

Whatever the reasons, if you are experiencing any dizziness or any form of light-headedness on a regular basis then you need to see your doctor as soon as you can. It might not be anything serious at all but it’s much better for them to make the decision rather than you.

About the Author: Stephen Morgan writes about a great many health issues on the Internet and more can be found on High Blood Pressure and Dizziness and at the following: http://www.livingwithhighbloodpressure.net
Source: http://www.articlesbase.com