Questions and Answers on Hypertension

What is Hypertension?

Hypertension is a sustained high blood pressure. It means if take your blood pressure on three or several occasions and it remains high, you might be having hypertension otherwise called High Blood Pressure.

You may have high blood pressure and may not have hypertension but if you keep on having high blood pressure repetitively, then you are likely hypertensive.

What is Blood Pressure BP?

Blood pressure (BP) is the pressure or force which the blood exerts on the blood vessels (‘the pipes that carries blood to and fro through the heart) as it flows through them.  An elementary Physics students will know that a liquid passing through a hollow pipe does exerts pressure on the inner surface of the pipe. Imagine the heart as a pumping machine. Any pumping machine will use a force or pressure to pump liquid. Blood pressure can also be defined as the force with which the heart pumps blood through the blood vessel. You have high blood pressure when the force of pumped blood is too high against the arteries.

How do I know if I have high Blood Pressure?

Visit a health professional and demand your blood pressure taken. He/she will use a blood pressure-taking instrument called sphygmomanometer to measure your BP.  You can take your BP by yourself if you have the instrument. Read about self blood pressure monitoring.

What is the normal BP value?

Blood pressure value exists as two readings known as systolic blood pressure SBP and diastolic blood pressure DBP. The blood pressure is written as SBP/DBP mmHg, e.g 97/72 mmHg simply read as “97 over 72”. The first number, called systolic blood pressure, measures the pressure in your blood vessels when your heart contracts or ‘beats’ to pump blood. The second number, called diastolic blood pressure, measures the pressure in your blood vessels when your heart relaxes between beats.

The normal value is 120/80mmHg or less but any BP from 140/90mmHg is too high and if the similar reading is obtained on three separate occasions, it will be deemed as hypertension.

If the systolic blood pressure (SBP) is less than or equal to 120mmHg and the diastolic blood pressure (DBP) is less than or equal to 80mmHg, it is still normal.

SBP greater than 140 and DBP greater than 90 is high.

SBP between 120-139 and DBP from 80-89 is prehypertensive stage; such person is at risk of hypertension.

Does blood pressure has to do with age?

Statistics shows that Systolic blood pressure (SBP) increases with age until the 80 or 90 years while diastolic blood pressure (DBP) rises only until middle age and then either remains steady or slightly decreases.

During those times when doctors had limited understanding about the risks of high blood pressure, people thought the value for pressure should be age plus 100.

How do I know if I have hypertension?

Hypertension or high blood pressure has no symptom and even individual may only be lucky to have symptoms such as headaches or stomach pain. This is why hypertension is often referred to as the ‘silent killer’ in that it may have no warning signs at all.

What will happen to me if I have hypertension?

Something will happen to you if you have HBP that is not controlled. We can sum what will happen to you into long-term and short-term complications. Uncontrolled HBP can will cause artery damage, brain damage, kidney damage, loss of vision, stroke, diabetes among others. It can cause sudden death by causing heart attack.

What is the real cause of hypertension?

Hypertension has no particular cause. Hypertension whose cause or origin is unknown is classed by doctors as primary or essential hypertension. However a pregnant woman with no history of hypertension, who then suddenly has hypertension during pregnancy may be said to have secondary hypertension. Secondary hypertension is the one that commences secondary to a particular condition or disease state. Also there are risk factors that have been known to contribute to or cause hypertension.

What are risk factors or lifestyles that can cause hypertension?

Certain factors some of which are modifiable and some non-modifiable increase the risk of developing hypertension.

Non-modifiable factors

 Age-risk of hypertension increases with age

Sex-overall, men are likely to have HBP than women

Family history

Modifiable factors

Alcohol drinking

Smoking

Excess salt intake

Obesity

Diabetes mellitus

Stress

Is hypertension preventable?

Yes, read the modifiable risk factors and try as much as possible to avoid them. Observe daily yoga. You can fix in physical exercise into your daily time-table.

Is hypertension curable?

There is no cure for hypertension. Cure in this context refers to a drug that will totally eliminate it in such a way that it won’t come back again. Once you become hypertensive, you have to manage it for the rest of your life. An individual may be hypertensive for fifty or more year without any crisis if it is managed and controlled properly over those years

How is hypertension managed?

Once you are diagnosed with hypertension, the first option of management should not be drugs but lifestyle modifications, that is, adjusting the modifiable risk factors such as reducing sodium intake and alcohol as well as creating time for exercise. It is after the HBP is not being controlled by these modifications that we start managing with drugs. Read more here on drug management of HTN.

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