High Blood Pressure -
Understanding the Basics.

by By: Stephen Morgan

The Phrase High Blood Pressure conjures up a variety of things to all people. In medical terms, hypertension refers to high blood pressure, regardless of the cause.

Because of the silent and insidious way it works in the background i.e. no symptoms it is referred to as the Silent Killer. If left uncontrolled or untreated then High Blood Pressure can cause a variety of illnesses all of which could kill if left to their own devices. It has been estimated that in the USA there are potentially 50 million sufferers of Hypertension / High Blood Pressure.

It would appear in certain cases but there are greater percentage of sufferers of high blood pressure amongst the black community as opposed to those in the white or Hispanic community in the USA. For blacks it would also appear the adverse consequences of high blood pressure were worse.

There is no doubt about that at high blood pressure does increase as we age with the figure is called 75% of women and 66% of men over the age of 75 being treated for high blood pressure. For those suffering with clinical obesity the incidences of high blood pressure rise by 200%.

In the United States, only an estimated two of three people with high blood pressure have been diagnosed.Of these people, about 75% receive drug treatment, and of these, about 45% receive adequate treatment.

Two terms are used when calculating high blood pressure, the systolic which is the first and greater of the two figures and refers to the highest pressure of the Arteries. The diastolic figure is the second figure calculated and represents the pressure in the hall product to the process of contraction again.

Blood pressure is written as systolic pressure/diastolic pressure—for example, 120/80 mm Hg (millimetres of mercury). This reading is referred to as '120 over 80.' If the blood pressure readings were greater than a systolic pressure of 140 mm Hg and a diastolic pressure off greater than 90 mm Hg than to suffer was deemed to be suffering from high blood pressure.

However, the higher the blood pressure, the greater the risks—even within the normal blood pressure range—so these limits are somewhat arbitrary.The limits were established because people with blood pressure above these levels are at increasing risk of complications.

In most people with high blood pressure, both systolic and diastolic pressures are high. The one major exception to this widely accepted approach towards blood pressure is when it is arising through increased age whereby it is not uncommon to see a raised systolic pressure alongside a normal diastolic figure.

The term for this condition is “isolated systolic hypertension”. At the upper end of the spectrum where the blood pressure is over 180/110 and remains so with a lack of associated symptoms then this condition is deemed to be known as “a hypertensive urgency.”

There has been an additional condition recognized as malignant hypertension and this occurs when blood pressure readings are in excess of 210/120 mm Hg. This has only been found to occur in about one half of one percent of all sufferers.

However, it is several times more common among blacks than among whites, among men than among women, and among people in lower socioeconomic groups than among those in higher socioeconomic groups. This type of hypertension is unlike hypertensive urgency in that it produces a variety of severe symptoms. If untreated, malignant hypertension usually leads to death in 3 to 6 months.

Stephen Morgan writes regularly on High Blood Pressure issues and more information on the above can be found atHigh Blood Pressure and also at http://www.livingwithhighbloodpressure.net/features/high_blood_pressure_can_be_controlled.html