High blood pressure: how it all starts?

Arteries carry blood around the body. When the heart beats, it pushes blood through the arteries. In a person who has healthy arteries, the blood streams through the arteries with little resistance. But in a person whose arteries have constricted, the arteries prevent the blood from streaming through them. The heart has to work harder to carry the blood where it should go, and this is how high blood pressure occurs. High blood pressure puts a huge strain on your heart and leads to damage to the arteries. This increases your risk for cardiac problems and kidney failure. Hypertension is frequently called the "silent killer", since a great many males and females are not even aware they have it. This is because the vast majority of people with high blood pressure have no symptoms.
In a healthy grownup blood pressure is 120/80 or lower. High blood pressure is a reading 140/90 or higher.
Several factors increase your risk of high blood pressure. Some you can control, and some you cannot. The factors you cannot be in control of are:
- Race. African Americans are proved to develop high blood pressure more often and earlier in life. Moreover, high blood pressure in African Americans is more severe.
- Age. Risk of hypertension increases with age.
- Heredity. If you have got close family members who have hypertension, you are at higher risk.
Other factors that place you at risk for high blood pressure include
• being corpulent
• lack of regular physical exercise
• using tobacco products
• consumption of too much salt.
Doctors recommend that all grownups aged 18 and older be examined for hypertension. If you have high blood pressure, the following are some tips to help you reduce it.
- Quit smoking. Nicotine makes your blood vessels narrower and your heart beat quicker, which raises your blood pressure.
- Lose extra pounds if you are overweight.
- Exercise regularly for half an hour 5 or days a week.
- Select a well-balanced diet rich in vitamins and low fats.
- Limit your sodium and alcohol intake.
If life-style improvements alone do not reduce your blood pressure, your physician may also prescribe antihypertensive drugs to treat your hypertension. But remember: even if you must take medicines, making healthy lifestyle choices can help lower the amount of medications you take.

Furosemide is a drug used to control hypertension. Read more about this blood pressure treatment on our site.