Exactly What Is High Blood Pressure? | Health and Fitness

High blood pressure, also known as hypertension, is a health condition in which the heart is overworked. A normal heart alternately pumps and receives blood. These functions go on involuntarily, and systematically. When these activities go haywire, the individual gets what is known as a pressure problem. High blood pressure, or hypertension is one of them.

In this condition, the heart keeps on pumping at a much higher than normal pressure, thereby destroying the elasticity of the arteries. Arteries are the blood vessels that transport good blood to different locations in the body. They are able to accommodate slightly more than their normal capacity. This characteristic is essential because of the heart?s pumping activity. When the heart pumps blood out, it rushes with great speed and pressure through these blood vessels. This pressure is referred to as systolic pressure. Normally, this should not be more than 120 mmHg. After the heart has emptied all the good blood that has accumulated in it, it starts getting re-filled with blood. The heart receives both oxygenated or pure blood, and impure blood. Purified blood arrives from the lungs, and impure blood is poured into the heart by the veins, which are another type of blood vessel.

There are chambers in the heart that keep both types of blood separate. The pumping action not only supplies pure blood to the body, it also sends the impure blood to the lungs for purification. When blood is reaching the heart, arteries are relieved of the excessive pressure. This lower level of pressure is termed diastolic pressure. In afflicted patients, the synchronization of pumping and receiving activities is disturbed. The human heart is not a machine. Therefore, if it were left for long in that state, muscles would get exhausted, and give way. That is when a person is said to have a stroke. Because of this, it is necessary to bring down this pressure.

Hypertension can be due to many factors, such as obesity, dehydration, stress, improper breathing, bad diet, lack of exercise, and other health conditions. If these factors are removed, the effects of the disease could be reduced considerably, but not entirely. Though medicines help to deal with the condition, these other factors may continue to raise it frequently. This is the reason they need to be controlled.

Apart from above mentioned factors, there are other factors such as smoking that can raise blood pressure. Therefore, reducing smoking lowers blood pressure. Likewise, reducing caffeine intake, and alcohol intake are also effective. Hypertension must be controlled, because it can damage the entire cardiovascular system, leading to heart stroke or heart attack. It can also adversely affect functioning of other organs, including the kidneys, and the brain.

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