Understanding High Blood Pressure And The Causes
Fluctuations of that blood pressure are normal in 24 hours, because every new heart beat can change something; when you are active, the blood pressure is higher and it lowers when you are resting.
The reading indicates two numbers, given in millimeters of mercury (mm Hg). One of the numbers, the upper number, measures the systolic pressure, the one exerted in the arteries by the heart beats, while the other - the lower number, reads the diastolic pressure which is the pressure inside the arteries between the beats.
Before the age of 50, the importance of the two numbers is equal. Then, the measuring of systolic pressure gains much more importance, because the most common type of hypertension in people over the age of 50, isolated systolic hypertension ( ISH), consists in a normal diastolic pressure and a high systolic pressure.
In May 2003, the latest information on high blood pressure was given by the Joint National Committee on Prevention, Detection, Evolution and Treatment of High Blood Pressure, which represents the gathering of 46 institutions of health care and includes the American Heart Association, the classification of hypertension in adults is the following:
- * The normal blood pressure, although ideally should be 115/75 mm Hg, is considered to be 120/80 mm Hg. Once the pressure exceeds the normal value, the risk of cardiovascular problems appears.
- * Prehypertension is characterized by an increase of the systolic pressure between 120 and 139 or by a diastolic pressure between 80 and 89. In time, one of three cases of prehypertension in adults between 35 and 64 years of age and one in two adults over 65 develops into actual high blood pressure.
- * Stage one of hypertension is characterized by a systolic pressure ranging between 140 and 159 or a diastolic one between 90 and 99.
- * Stage two hypertension is the most serious type. It is characterized by a systolic pressure of at least 160 or a diastolic one of 100 or higher.
Prehypertension or hypertension are present in case the top of the bottom numbers are high.
What exactly causes hypertension is beyond knowledge in 95% of the cases; this is called essential or primary hypertension. The secondary type of hypertension derives from the existence of other latent disease like:
- * Sleep apnea
- * Disorders of the thyroid glad
- * Abnormalities of the blood vessels
- * Problems of the kidneys
- * Adrenal disorders
- * Hypertension and rich protein content inside the urine after the 4-th month of pregnancy, also known as preeclampsia.
Secondary hypertension may also be generated by some medicines, such as decongestants, medicines for cold, birth control pills, or others.
One such drug is Tylenol that was proved by research in 2005 to cause a higher risk of secondary hypertension. A study performed on 5000 healthy women, some of which were administered every day about 500 mg of this medicine. They were shown to be more predisposed to secondary hypertension than the others, which didn't take this treatment.
The results of this study are unknown for men. The entire study, made by about 200.000 nurses and called Nurses' Health Study, started 30 years ago, and it is still being performed nowadays.
Amphetamine and cocaine have also been proved to cause hypertension. Primary hypertension develops progressive thus much slower than secondary hypertension, which evolves extremely quickly.