Worldwide the prevalence of hypertension exceeds 1.3 billion individuals and is considered the leading (preventable) cause of all deaths (1).
This is what urgently hipertension or high blood pressure requests our attention.
Hypertension or high blood pressure is a complex disease that according to the CDC - Center for Disease Control and Prevention (2), affects one in three Americans. About 75 million people or 32 percent of the adult population. Besides, nearly 1 in 3 American adults have pre-hypertension, meaning that their blood pressure numbers are higher than normal, but are not yet in the high blood pressure range.
Like the majority of the existing chronic health conditions, hypertension is a disease that is commonly influenced by our diet, lifestyle and environmental factors (3).
In fact, serious health problems that are essentially caused by factors that much of it can be easily prevented and reverted.
Consequently, in order to prevent and reduce the incidence of the epidemic of chronic disease we see around us, including high blood pressure, we must change our dietary and lifestyle routines.
In the next few articles, I will be writing about some simple, safe, and efficient changes to encourage you prevent and reverse hypertension naturally.
Powerful modifications that can be implemented right away in your life such as addressing nutrition, toxins exposure, sleep hygiene, adequate physical exercise, stress management, connection with nature, pleasure, and social interaction.
Although, first of all, in order to motivate you to change habits and take control of your health, may be of critical importance understand this condition. So, are you ready?
What is blood pressure?
Our circulatory system is made up of three main parts (4):
. blood, which carries substances such as nutrients, oxygen and waste products around our body
. blood vessels, a network of tubes that carry the blood
. heart, whose job is to pump our blood throughout the circulatory system
The main role of our circulatory system is to transport our blood, pumped by our heart through a network of vessels throughout our body in order to provide our organs, tissues and individual cells with oxygen, nutrients, hormones, and help the removal of metabolic waste and re-enter our heart.
A good way to think about our blood vessels is as our body’s highways that, when are properly functioning, allow our blood to flow rapidly and efficiently from our heart to all regions in our body and back again to our heart.
As our blood moves in these highways, it pushes against the walls of our blood vessels. So, the amount of force that our blood applies on the arteries walls as it flows through them is called blood pressure (5).
What is high blood pressure or hypertension?
High blood pressure or hypertension is a disease of our circulatory system since the blood pressure or the force of our blood pushing against the walls of our blood vessels, is consistently too high (6).
Consequently, the primary way that high blood pressure causes us harm is by increasing the workload of our heart and blood vessels (7).
Over time, the high friction of blood pushing against the delicate tissues inside our vessels may stretch in order to blood flows more easily. Eventually, the stretching scars and weakens blood vessels throughout the body, reducing their capacity to effectively function.
So, in the Part 2 of this article, I will talk about how high blood pressure is diagnosed, what to do if you notice a sudden rise in your blood pressure, how hypertension threatens our health and quality of life, and about the most common high blood pressure symptoms.
See you soon, and please, don't forget about leaving your comment below.