Are you doing enough for your blood pressure?

High blood pressure

In the US, more than 72 million adults have high blood pressure - the staggering amount of one in three American adults. And this figure is looking set to increase.

Anyone can develop high blood pressure, but these factors increase the risk: being overweight or obese, being physically inactive, high salt and sodium intake, low potassium intake (due to not eating enough fruits and vegetables), excessive alcohol consumption, and diabetes.

High blood pressure can lead to numerous other life-threatening conditions, which includes heart disease (biggest killer), strokes (third biggest killer) and kidney failure (ninth biggest killer).

In the US, high blood pressure is a factor in 67 percent of heart attacks, while it's a factor in 77 percent of strokes. Also, high blood pressure precedes 74 percent of cases of heart failure and it's the second leading cause of chronic kidney failure in the US-responsible for 26 percent of all cases.

Each year, high blood pressure causes more visits to doctors than any other condition-just a 10 percent decline in the number of visits would save $450 million each year. A decline would help reduce the $100 billion it costs the US economy each year, according to Mission.

As nearly 60 million Americans are over age 55 which means they have a 90 percent likelihood of developing high blood pressure in their lifetimes.

Changing your lifestyle

"Lifestyle changes can be hard," says Dr. Peter Rudd, professor of medicine emeritus at the Stanford University School of Medicine. "And even when drugs are prescribed, patients don't always take them properly. After all, high blood pressure usually has no symptoms, so people may not feel they need to take medication or adjust their habits," Rudd says to the Los Angeles Times.

Patients can greatly reduce their risk for such problems by bringing their blood pressure down to a "goal level" they establish with their doctor. Unfortunately, national data show that only one in three people with high blood pressure manages to do this, even though a wide range of lifestyle choices can help and effective drug treatments are available.

Some factors are beyond your control, when it comes to high blood pressure, including age (as your age goes up, your blood pressure tends to go up too), gender (men are more likely to have high blood pressure than women), race and ethnicity (African Americans are more likely to have high blood pressure than Caucasian or Hispanic Americans), salt-sensitivity (African Americans are also more likely to be salt-sensitive) and family history (if your parents or other close relatives have high blood pressure, you have a greater than average risk of developing it too).

But you have control over some other factors, such as how much you weigh, how much salt you consume, how much alcohol you consume, whether or not you smoke, how much exercise you get and how much stress you experience.

Richard N. Fogoros, M.D. for About.com recommends the following tips to prevent high blood pressure:

1. Maintain a healthy weight. There are many statistical tables that calculate your ideal body weight based upon your height, build and age.

2. Lose weight if you are overweight, being overweight increases your risk of high blood pressure by six to eight times.

3. To lose weight do it slowly and steadily, aiming to lose one-half to one pound a week. Eat fewer calories than you burn off. For instance, you could cut down from 3500 calories a day in the first week to 3000 calories a day for the second week, and then to 2500 calories a day for the third week and so on.

4. Be more physically active. Fit some light activity into your daily routine, like walking at lunch, using the stairs rather than the elevator, or working in your garden.

5. Choose foodstuffs lower in salt and sodium. Eat no more than six grams of salt a day.

6. Check food labels for information of sodium in the food. Look for products with "unsalted" or "sodium free" labels.

7. Buy fresh poultry, fish and lean meat, and fresh, or canned with "no salt added", vegetables.

8. Cut back on frozen dinners, pizza, canned soups, broths and salad dressings, which are high in sodium.

9. If you drink alcohol, do it in moderation. If you have no more than two drinks a day, your risk of high blood pressure is low.

10. Other things too may help prevent hypertension, like calcium, potassium, fish oils, magnesium and stress management.

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