Many people have high blood pressure which may be a permanent condition. But how does it happen? Hypertension is a condition that occurs when there is too much pressure of blood against the walls of the arteries caused by narrowing or blockage.
Approximately 70 million Americans have hypertension. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), only about half (52%) of people with high blood pressure have their condition under control.
Hypertension predisposes a person to serious and potentially fatal medical conditions like stroke, heart attack and abdominal aortic aneurysm. In fact, high blood pressure was a primary or contributing cause of death for more than 360,000 Americans in 2013-that's nearly 1,000 deaths each day.
The main causes of hypertension are increase in cardiac output and increase in total peripheral resistance. Cardiac output is raised by conditions like increased heart rate or stroke volume while peripheral resistance is increased by factors that increase blood viscosity and decreased arterial diameter.
Chronic hypertension damages the arterial walls causing permanent injury. This causes prolonged vasoconstriction causing smooth muscle hypertrophy or wasting. When this happens, the diameter of the arteries decreases. Aside from that, when there is injury, inflammation occurs causing the release of histamine, leukotrienes and prostaglandinds. There would be increased vascular permeability causing increased peripheral resistance.
There are two types of hypertension, essential and secondary. Primary or essential hypertension is characterized by an extremely complicated interaction of genes and the environment. Secondary hypertension is the result of an underlying cause or a systemic disease.
According to pharmaceutical-journal.com, hypertension is the most common causative factor to many deaths worldwide. Some individuals do not experience any symptoms unless their blood pressure reaches more than 200 mmHg. However, it may remain undiagnosed unless symptoms manifests or blood pressure would be taken by a health care professional.
Once hypertension has been diagnosed, further tests should be conducted, including urine testing, blood tests, an eye examination and a 12-lead electrocardiogram (ECG).
