What Is High Blood Pressure and Why Do YOU Get It
If you have high blood pressure, you’re in good (though not terribly
healthy) company. Sixty-five million Americans (one in three adults)
have high blood pressure. A list of the people in this country with high blood
pressure would read like a Who’s Who. The problem is that, without proper
treatment, many of those people will be on a list of Who Was Who sooner
than they expect. The reason is that high blood pressure is the largest risk
factor for heart attacks, brain attacks (strokes), and disease of the arteries.
Don’t let yourself or a loved one get on that second list without a fight!
You can do so much about high blood pressure — you can prevent it, and
if it’s already high, you can control it. But before you act, you need to know
what high blood pressure is and how you measure it. You also need up-to-date
information about its causes and its treatments. This book is your blood
pressure companion, providing you with a solid understanding of your
blood pressure: how it affects your body organ by organ, who is at risk, how
you can prevent it, and how you can treat it after it’s properly diagnosed.
As you’ll discover, a few simple alterations to your lifestyle can prevent high
blood pressure. My hope is that as you read this book, you’re spurred on to
make these changes, not just now but in the future. High blood pressure is a
chronic disease. You may lower your blood pressure in the short term, but the
goal is long-term control to prevent other medical consequences (see Part II).
Take charge of your blood pressure now so you don’t suffer the fate of a
health-food storeowner who posted a sign saying, “Closed due to illness.”
Understanding Your Cardiovascular
System
To understand how elevated blood pressure affects your overall health, you
need to understand the contribution of your heart and blood vessels. Your
cardiovascular system — your heart, arteries, veins, capillaries, and the
blood that fills them — nourishes your body and connects each part to every
other part. The cardiovascular system carries
Food (carbohydrates, protein, fat, vitamins, and minerals) from the
gastrointestinal tract to every organ in the body
Oxygen from the lungs and in the blood to distant organs
Waste, a normal product of your body’s metabolism
For example, the cardiovascular system carries carbon dioxide to the
lungs and the other waste products to the liver and kidneys.
Pressure must exist to push the blood through the cardiovascular system.
(Otherwise your blood would pool in your legs due to gravity when you
stood up!) Just as your household water supply reaches a faucet because
of pressure pushing it through the pipes, blood reaches your brain because
pressure is allowing it to defy gravity and rise from the heart.
The heart muscle (the source of this pressure) squeezes out the blood forcefully
so the blood not only defies gravity but also travels through the smallest
passageways (the capillaries).
When essential body organs like the kidneys don’t receive enough pressure to
function properly, they signal the heart to pump harder. But what’s good for
the kidneys may not be good for the brain or the blood vessels themselves.
And that’s when the consequences of high blood pressure occur (see Part II).
