Manage Arterial Hypertension To Live Better

By chezfat | Dec 4, 2009 | 0 Comments | Rating: 0

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Arterial hypertension is one of the many reasons that many people have a poor quality of life in their later years. This condition routinely leads to other serious conditions which can be both debilitating and sometimes fatal. Arterial hypertension slowly builds up throughout a lifetime and aids cholesterol in building up plaques along the artery walls. When these plaques form more serious conditions can take hold such as coronary heart disease, floating clots, strokes, and even early onset dementia. Monitoring and maintaining low to average levels of blood pressure is very important in staving these more serious diseases that affect older people. Especially as our population continues to get older leaning to manage arterial hypertension and to lower high blood pressure is getting ever more important.

Safe levels of blood pressure typically fall in the area of 120 over 80. As blood pressure rises from this point, the body is every more likely to experience a heart attack. The reason for this is two-fold. One, as cholesterol builds up in the arteries blood pressure begins to rise. The higher blood pressure rises to effectively the higher the quantity of plaque buildup in the arteries exists. When the plaques get to thick arteries begin clogging and blood flow is slowed to certain areas of the body with the worst of all being the heart and brain. Lower blood pressure levels are crucial to maintaining cardiovascular health.

Another reason a person might experience a heart attack due to the results of arterial hypertension is because hypertension allows the innermost layer of the arteries, the endothelium, to be damaged easier. The concept is simple. As pressure builds the "friction" of the circulating blood on the artery walls makes it more likely that damage will occur. When damage occurs then plaques form around the scar tissue. The more times this happens the more likely one of these plaques can break off and float through the arteries before lodging somewhere and causing either a heart attack or stroke. In this circumstance not only can the cholesterol deposits build up to block the arteries but they can break off and block an artery further down the system.

Interestingly arterial hypertension does not only affect arterial diseases but it is also highly correlated with early onset dementia. It's not just that hypertension exists however, it's why it exists. Sometimes arterial hypertension is caused by plaque build up, sometimes it's caused by diet, but other times it's caused by systemic inflammation which causes the arteries to be less flexible. When this happens clinical researchers have noted a greater likelihood of early onset dementia in patients. Basically if you can recognize that arterial hypertension exists and then treat the inflammation that causes it you can effectively help prevent early onset dementia from ever striking you.

So what does all of this mean in the real world and how can we leverage this knowledge to let us live better and healthier lives? We can see that arterial hypertension has the ability to cause various forms of diseases which are capable of debilitating results and or death. We also see that by lowering our blood pressure our risks for the same conditions are far less, therefore it should be very important for us to do everything we can to lower our levels of hypertension.

This can be done by making changes to our diet, increasing levels of activity and exercise, as well as by taking doctor prescribed medication. However you do it make sure you stick to the plan because you want your golden years to be truly enjoyable and you don't want to have to rely on others or medications to merely stay alive. Live better by maintaining healthy blood pressure levels. Control arterial hypertension and live longer.

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