The fact that we live in a stressful environment is not a secret to
anyone. We have stressful jobs, busy lives, a tone of work to take care
of everyday, families, maybe some screaming children as well, and no
time for ourselves unfortunately. That, alongside consuming the wrong
foods can make you suffer form high blood pressure.
Blood
pressure is represented by the power with which the blood is traveling
through your veins. When the blood pressure is high (hypertension), it
means that the blood is traveling rapidly, hitting the vein walls with
an elevated force.
Dr. Andrew Weil says that "hypertension is
often called a because even severe, uncontrolled high blood pressure
often has no obvious symptoms. However, even when absolute blood
pressure levels are only moderately elevated, patients may report
headaches, dizzy spells, or nosebleeds. In general, however, these
symptoms don't occur unless there has been a rapid, acute change in
blood pressure, or until blood pressure has reached dangerous levels".
There
are a lot of factors that can trigger high blood pressure into a
patient, says Dr. Weil, but its not a certain pattern that can address
to everyone with this condition. "The risk of high blood pressure
increases with age as arterial walls lose their elasticity. There can be
many contributing factors, yet doctors often cannot identify an exact
cause for high blood pressure, in which case the person is said to have
", says Dr Andrew in his article.
The factors that could
contribute to this condition are: stress, a diet rich in salt and low in
magnesium, calcium and potassium, excessive alcohol intake, insulin
resistance, medications (like birth control pills, diet pills, steroids,
decongestants, and others) and being overweight.
Due to a diet
rich in salt (taken from a lot of foods like: processed foods, fast
foods, pastry, cold cuts and many others to which most people add extra
salt when cooking with them), lack of exercise and bad diet, led to the
manifestation of this condition in children as well. "Even young
children can develop high blood pressure, but these cases often go
undiagnosed. A study published in the Journal of the American Medical
Association in 2007 concluded that approximately two million children in
the U.S. have high blood pressure, yet only 500,000 cases will be
diagnosed. The principle cause is the ongoing epidemic of childhood
obesity. It's estimated that about 30 percent of overweight and obese
children have high blood pressure and that the problem is likely to
worsen as the epidemic continues", said dr. Weil.
The indication
that Andrew Weil, M.D. gives to people is to limit the caffeine and
alcohol intake, stop smoking, avoid processed foods, exercise, maintain
optimal weight, pay extra attention to the medicine intake and try out
the DASH diet, which he says that "it emphasizes generous amounts of
fruits and vegetables and low-fat or fat-free dairy products that
provide adequate calcium. The diet is also relatively low in fat and
sodium. DASH researchers have shown that diets rich in potassium,
calcium and magnesium, and low in sodium (2,400 mg or less), play an
important role in blood pressure control".