High-Blood Pressure Essay

In this particular essay, I am going to attempt to inform you about the disease called high blood pressure. In this three to four page report I will discuss what causes it, how it can be treated and when you know it is too high. Hopefully, after reading this piece, you will be more aware of what high blood pressure is. To begin with, the disorder or disease that I will be doing my report on is High blood pressure; also known as hypertension. The system that the disorder comes from is the cardiovascular system. The majority of times, there is no clear cause, which can be identified as the cause of the disorder. The clearest cause of why blood pressure is high is that the arteries that the blood flows through are too small. High blood pressure is most common in people whose families have had it; the same as heredity. It is also most common in males, patients who are over 35 years old, African-Americans and in women on oral contraceptives. High blood pressure is far more common in families where other members have had this condition. Even though sometimes it is a hereditary disorder, it is not always. For instance, while the incidence of high blood pressure is low in Japan, it is higher in Japanese who migrate to America. Cultural things that we do in America will affect the incidences of high blood pressure, these include: Being overweight, eating high sodium diet, exercising too little, and drinking more than two alcoholic drinks daily. Some of the symptoms include: Calcification, cardiac arrest, chest pain, depression, diabetes, dizziness, heart attack and shortness of breath. The disorder doesn’t really progress within the system. If you have high blood pressure in one part of your system, it is most likely that you have high blood pressure in all of your system. Blood only comes from one place in your system, your heart. So if a little part of your body has high blood pressure, then every blood vessel in your body should have it as well. Some people think that only at a certain level of high blood pressure should be treated. Some people also think that the higher the blood pressure, the higher the risk of suffering one of its complications. People with hypertension are encouraged to: Maintain ideal body weight, reduce the consumption of sodium and maintain at least a modest exercise program. If  your blood pressure is too high, then medications may be taken to control it. Several readings are required to test whether or not you have high blood pressure. Generally, blood pressure is said to be too high at the level of 140/90, and some therapy should be started at this level. If after the therapy, the pressure is still too high, then you should start taking medications. You can’t really tell when your blood pressure is too high. One of high blood pressure’s nicknames is â€Å"silent killer† because it can hurt you very bad even when you don’t know you have it. The biggest problem with the treatment of high blood pressure is not a lack of knowledge, but a lack of applying our current knowledge. To help treat the disorder remember these key points: take your medications as prescribed, Get your medications filled before they run out, and follow-up with your doctor. There is a syndrome that people sometimes feel eerie about. This is called â€Å"White Coat Syndrome†. This is a situation where patients have a high blood pressure in the doctor’s office, but nowhere else. This is usually where when someone sees a doctor he or she starts to feel tense and irritated. This is not a terrible thing. If you have an occasional high blood pressure it is not as dangerous as when your blood pressure remains elevated all of the time. There is really no prevention of high blood pressure. It is mostly a hereditary trait passed down from a family member. The best bet that you have to prevent the disease is to maintain an ideal body weight, reduce your consumption of sodium and maintain at least a modest exercise program. Doing these things will not prevent it 100%, but they might help you out for the future. Some common causes of the disease are medications, habitual alcohol use, too much salt in the diet, obesity, stress and arteriosclerosis. In conclusion, I have summed up some pretty important topics in this composition. Some of the most important things that I learned are that some people don’t even know when they have high blood pressure or not, what you can do to treat the disease, and what you can get it from. I think that after I have read learned all this about the disease, I will probably try to consume less sodium, maintain an ideal body weight and exercise fairly  regularly. By doing these everyday things I should be able to help myself from getting the disease.