Causes Of Hypertension

High blood pressure usually creeps up slowly, so to assign a single cause other than heredity (which accounts for about 2 to 3 percent of all cases of high blood pressure) cannot be done. Calling high blood pressure an environmental disease is a polite way of saying it has many causes.

Type A Behavior

People who are very tense and live a life of internally generated stress generally develop high blood pressure. Type A behavior might be good for getting ahead in business, but it is detrimental to living a longer life.

External Stress

Stress is often a factor in the workplace, but it can also exist in the home, in the neighborhood, and among friends. If you can't eliminate external stress or take steps to reduce its impact, you will likely develop high blood pressure. It is a symptom that something is awry in your life.

Smoking

Smoking can cause high blood pressure all by itself. Two toxic chemicals from cigarette smoke constrict the arteries and capillaries and interfere with metabolism. Smoking is a habit people often take up as a result of external stress.

Alcohol

Excessive alcohol intake always causes high blood pressure in people who are particularly sensitive to alcohol. and it makes high blood pressure worse for everyone. Alcohol-related high blood pressure usually doesn't respond to blood pressure medication; it's the alcohol intake itself that has to be stopped.

Excess Weight

Being overweight causes high blood pressure for two reasons: first, each pound of fat requires about five miles of small blood vessels called capillaries, and the heart must use higher pressure to push the blood through those many extra miles. Second, overweight people produce an excess of the hormone insulin. Excess insulin causes the kidneys to raise blood pressure.

Overweight people who have high blood pressure must lose weight and straighten out a few other dietary factors, such as adopting a low-sugar, high-carbohydrate diet with a balanced K-factor (the ratio of sodium to potassium in the diet); when they do so, their high blood pressure usually disappears completely.

Poor Dietary Habits

Too much salt in the diet is the basis of much high blood pressure. Salt upsets the K-factor. Many other dietary elements contribute to high blood pressure by causing constant recurring stress:

• Fiber: only 5 percent of adults get adequate dietary fiber.

• Calcium and magnesium: these are a basis for sensible supplements.

• Fat balance: imbalance is caused by excessive saturated fat and insufficient omega-3 oils.

Fitness

Sedentary people have an unfit vascular system; regular exercise will reduce blood pressure all by itself Regular exercise develops more flexibility in blood vessels so when the heart beats, blood is forced not into a rigid set of pipes but into an elastic and yielding system. Hence, less pressure is required to get the blood where it is going. It's as if the arteries help the blood along rather than resist its flow.

More Hypertension Tips