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Blood pressure is the force with which blood flows through your veins. It can change from one day to the next, or even many times during the same day. If it's too high, your blood vessels, heart, and kidneys could be damaged. If it's too low, you could become weak, dizzy, faint, and suffer from damage to your heart and brain. There are many factors that control blood pressure. There are some you can't do anything about, but you can change others.
High-Blood Pressure
When the blood flowing through your veins hits artery walls with too much force, your blood pressure rises. There are usually no symptoms, so you need to have your doctor check your blood pressure regularly to avoid damage to your body. There are some factors causing high-blood pressure that you can't do anything about, such as heredity, age, gender, and race. If you're a 35-year-old or older African-American male with parents or other blood relatives who have high-blood pressure, you're most likely to develop it.
Controllable Risk Factors for High-Blood Pressure
Major controllable factors of an increase in blood pressure over time include smoking, drinking too much alcohol, having sleep apnea and stress. Other factors that raise your blood pressure include being inactive, caffeine and salt intake, cold temperature, being overweight or obese, being pregnant, and using medication such as NSAIDS, antidepressants, birth-control pills, steroids, decongestants, and diet pills.
Solutions for High-Blood Pressure
Don't smoke and limit the amount of alcohol you drink to one-or-two drinks twice a week. Become more active, exercising regularly at least 30 minutes a day, 5 days a week. Ask your doctor about changing medications. Lose weight and follow a diet such as the DASH diet that includes eight or more servings of vegetables and fruit each day. Include those that contain a lot of magnesium, potassium, and calcium such as bananas, grapes, oranges, melons, potatoes, carrots, broccoli, and tomatoes. Other DASH recommendations are avoiding salt and eating low-fat dairy and meat products. You should also include whole grains, as well as high-fiber foods such as nuts, beans and legumes.
Low-Blood Pressure Risk Factors
When your blood pressure is too low or drops suddenly you can have blurred vision, cold pale skin, be unable to concentrate, and feel faint or dizzy. Causes of low-blood pressure include anemia, dehydration, blood loss, the fast expansion of a pregnant-woman's circulatory system, medication, lack of necessary nutrients in your diet, an overactive or underactive thyroid, Parkinson's disease, and heart problems such as low-heart rate and problems with heart valves.
Solutions for Low-Blood Pressure
You need to work with your doctor to find what is causing your low-blood pressure, as treatment depends on the cause. A change in the medicine causing your blood pressure to drop, and diet changes to avoid foods you are sensitive to and add those with nutrients your body needs can help. Women with low-blood pressure because of pregnancy usually regain normal blood pressure after the baby is born. Treatment for dehydration, heart problems, Parkinson's disease, and thyroid problems can return your blood pressure levels to normal.
Considerations
Measured blood pressure varies according to the technique used for measurement, the accuracy of the equipment used, and how anxious or nervous the person being tested is. Blood pressure also depends on your hormone levels, how much salt and water are in your body, and the condition of your blood vessels, kidneys and nervous system.
High-Blood Pressure
When the blood flowing through your veins hits artery walls with too much force, your blood pressure rises. There are usually no symptoms, so you need to have your doctor check your blood pressure regularly to avoid damage to your body. There are some factors causing high-blood pressure that you can't do anything about, such as heredity, age, gender, and race. If you're a 35-year-old or older African-American male with parents or other blood relatives who have high-blood pressure, you're most likely to develop it.
Controllable Risk Factors for High-Blood Pressure
Major controllable factors of an increase in blood pressure over time include smoking, drinking too much alcohol, having sleep apnea and stress. Other factors that raise your blood pressure include being inactive, caffeine and salt intake, cold temperature, being overweight or obese, being pregnant, and using medication such as NSAIDS, antidepressants, birth-control pills, steroids, decongestants, and diet pills.
Solutions for High-Blood Pressure
Don't smoke and limit the amount of alcohol you drink to one-or-two drinks twice a week. Become more active, exercising regularly at least 30 minutes a day, 5 days a week. Ask your doctor about changing medications. Lose weight and follow a diet such as the DASH diet that includes eight or more servings of vegetables and fruit each day. Include those that contain a lot of magnesium, potassium, and calcium such as bananas, grapes, oranges, melons, potatoes, carrots, broccoli, and tomatoes. Other DASH recommendations are avoiding salt and eating low-fat dairy and meat products. You should also include whole grains, as well as high-fiber foods such as nuts, beans and legumes.
Low-Blood Pressure Risk Factors
When your blood pressure is too low or drops suddenly you can have blurred vision, cold pale skin, be unable to concentrate, and feel faint or dizzy. Causes of low-blood pressure include anemia, dehydration, blood loss, the fast expansion of a pregnant-woman's circulatory system, medication, lack of necessary nutrients in your diet, an overactive or underactive thyroid, Parkinson's disease, and heart problems such as low-heart rate and problems with heart valves.
Solutions for Low-Blood Pressure
You need to work with your doctor to find what is causing your low-blood pressure, as treatment depends on the cause. A change in the medicine causing your blood pressure to drop, and diet changes to avoid foods you are sensitive to and add those with nutrients your body needs can help. Women with low-blood pressure because of pregnancy usually regain normal blood pressure after the baby is born. Treatment for dehydration, heart problems, Parkinson's disease, and thyroid problems can return your blood pressure levels to normal.
Considerations
Measured blood pressure varies according to the technique used for measurement, the accuracy of the equipment used, and how anxious or nervous the person being tested is. Blood pressure also depends on your hormone levels, how much salt and water are in your body, and the condition of your blood vessels, kidneys and nervous system.
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