When you breathe in oxygen and absorb nutrients from food and drink, it’s your bloodstream that carries those vital materials throughout your body using the circulatory system. This complex network of veins, blood vessels, and arteries pumps blood to and from your heart, providing necessary chemicals and removing waste in a steady rhythm.
Maintaining the system means keeping blood pressure at healthy levels, but sadly, hypertension, also known as high blood pressure, affects 1.28 billion people globally and increases your risk of cardiovascular disease. Millions with hypertension remain unaware they have it; fortunately, some changes in your life can reduce blood pressure to lower health risks.
Residents of Sylacauga and Talladega, Alabama, who are trying to manage their blood pressure can receive help from Dr. Ghayas Habach and the Merit Health Care medical team.
Hypertension describes a condition in which the force of blood as it moves through the body becomes consistently high, and the magnitude of this force determines the level of danger it represents. Regular blood pressure issues are more common in adults, but anyone can have acute problems with the illness, and lasting damage leads to heart attacks and stroke.
When you hear your doctor or staff go over blood pressure readings, they recite numbers that represent your body’s systolic and diastolic results. The top number (systolic) shows the measure of blood pressure when your heart beats and pumps out blood, and the bottom number (diastolic) measures between the heartbeats.
Here’s how the readings work:
There are different forms of hypertension: primary indicates issues directly causing symptoms, and secondary means it’s related to another medical problem. Other types include situational high blood pressure, such as when you're at a doctor’s office (white coat, masked, or sustained), or when you’re asleep (nocturnal).
Several factors cause hypertension to develop, such as high sodium diets, drinking alcohol heavily, and physical inactivity. Secondary hypertension has multiple causes, such as obstructive sleep apnea, kidney disease, illegal drug use, tobacco use, renal vascular diseases, and some medications.
This illness develops without symptoms, giving it the morbid nickname, “the silent killer,” but signs like headaches, heart palpitations, and nosebleeds do happen. Your chances of getting it also increase if there’s a family history, you’re over 55, Black, or overweight.
To reduce your blood pressure, several lifestyle changes can be used:
We have several options to manage blood pressure, but these basic steps can make a significant difference in maintaining healthy levels. Schedule an appointment with Dr. Habach and Merit Health Care today to learn how to manage your blood pressure.
