What is High Blood Pressure?

“The silent killer.” Sounds like a nickname for a stealthy murderer... and it IS. The silent killer, better known as HIGH BLOOD PRESSURE or hypertension, often has no noticeable symptoms. That’s why about one third of the 50 million Americans who have it, DON’T KNOW IT. But diagnosed or not, it can lead to a whole roster of life-threatening health problems, including heart attack and stroke. That’s because high blood pressure puts pressure on the walls of your arteries and causes tiny tears in their lining. Scar tissue builds up around the tears and snags cholesterol that is floating by in your bloodstream. Eventually the cholesterol builds up, forming plaques that can narrow the blood vessels or break off and form clots that can trigger strokes.  People with hypertension are also at a higher risk for an aneurysm because overstretched arteries are more likely to rupture. To find out if you have high blood pressure, all you need is a simple test. You can have it done at the doctor’s or you can do it at home. The American Heart Association recommends that at home you use an automatic, cuff-style, bicep monitor.  The test measures pressure in two ways. First, as the force of your blood against the walls of your blood vessels as your heart muscles contract.  And second, when they RELAX. A measurement to aim for is 120 over 80. 140 over 90 is considered high, while anything above 180 over 110 qualifies as an emergency. There are two types of hypertension. Most adults have primary hypertension—which develops slowly over the years. Others have secondary hypertension, which is triggered by a specific factor, such as drug abuse, birth control pills or kidney problems. Risk factors for primary high blood pressure include: being older than 74, having a family history of the condition, being African American, being obese, physically inactive or a smoker, drinking alcohol frequently, being stressed out, eating too much salt, or taking in too LITTLE potassium or vitamin D. To get more details on hypertension, watch other videos in this series!