As long as I’ve got your attention on hypertension this past week I thought you might want to make sure you know just a little more to dispel the myths and maintain your own health.

First, be aware that some medical conditions can cause or contribute to high blood pressure.  These include anemia, an overactive thyroid, kidney disease, a malfunctioning aortic valve or sleep apnea. Blood pressure reflects both the amount of blood the heart pumps out every minute which is called cardiac output. It also reflects the pressure the walls of the arteries exert on the flowing blood. A healthy artery expands as blood surges through it and returns to its normal shape when the blood flow ebbs. The problem is that as we get older our arteries tend to lose their elasticity and we’re not as capable to accommodate the surges of blood.

Another change is that we tend to accumulate more fatty deposits or plaque on the inside of arterial walls and that also contributes to the artery-clogging process known as hardening of the arteries or atherosclerosis. When plaque accumulates it also stimulates other processes that thicken the wall even more.  This makes the artery wall less flexible and as artery walls stiffen, the diastolic blood pressure tends to drop while the systolic pressure rises. Not good.

If you are a female about 55 years old you probably have a lower incidence of hypertension than men. However after that your blood pressure tends to rise even more so than men’s.  Even so it is not clear how menopause and the resulting decline in estrogen affect blood pressure. Maybe info on that next year.

The point of all this is have your doctor check out your medical conditions like anemia before you start taking medications for high blood pressure.  The next step is for you to make a healthier lifestyle for yourself such as losing weight, exercising, cutting out the salt in your diet and, of course,  no smoking. If lifestyle by itself doesn’t get your bp down, then meds are your next step.

For more info on your heart and a downloadable blood pressure-tracking chart visit the American Heart Association’s High Blood Pressure Web page.

To your successful healthy aging.

Ruthan Brodsky

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Filed under: Conditions and Diseases

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