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Cardiovascular Conditions / Do You Have High Blood Pressure Without Knowing It?
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submitted by Dr. Gary Farr - Contact the author here.
Last Updated May, 21, 2002
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 It won"t make you feel ill and there are no warning signs, but high blood pressure, often called the silent killer, is now affecting an alarming number of men and women.
In less than ten years, the number of sufferers has doubled in this country. More worryingly, doctors fear a growing epidemic of the condition - also called hypertension - among younger people.
Although high blood pressure is traditionally associated with those over the age of 50, it"s estimated that one in 50 men under the age of 20 and more than one in 100 women of the same age are now sufferers.
 Despite its lack of symptoms, over several years the condition can lead to heart disease, strokes and kidney problems. People who are diabetic are particularly at risk from hypertension and associated diseases.
Click on the links at the bottom of the page to find out the causes of high blood pressure, how to get tested and the steps you need to take to prevent it.
Every time our heart pumps, it forces blood through our arteries and into smaller blood vessels called capillaries. The force of our heart when it pumps blood through our capillaries is called blood pressure.
High blood pressure is when the small blood vessels in our arteries narrow, causing pressure of the blood to build up - rather like squeezing a garden hose.
Professor Mark Caulfield, a consultant physician specialising in hypertension at London"s St Bartholomew"s Hospital and the London School of Medicine, says the risk of hypertension is not improving as hoped, it is getting worse.
Professor Caulfield blames this growing epidemic on poor eating habits and our increasingly sedentary lifstyles.
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"One in five people in Britain is now classified as obese," he says. "We are leading more sedentary lifestyles. This, coupled with processed food and TV dinners high in fats, salt and sugar, means that as a nation we are getting fatter and fatter."
"Being overweight puts pressure on the heart affecting the way blood is being squeezed through our arteries," he says. |
"High levels of fatty foods and sugar can narrow our arteries, making our blood vessels rigid and more vulnerable to blood clotting which can lead to heart disease or strokes," he says.
The other big problem, according to Professor Caulfield, is excess salt. Recent figures show that as a nation we eat one third too much salt in our diet.
"If we simply stopped adding salt to our food we would signficantly reduce blood pressure and associated diseases," says Professor Caulfield.
Research suggests that sticking to the advised intake of salt (5g a day for women and 7g for men) would mean 22 per cent fewer deaths from strokes and 16 per cent fewer from heart attacks - saving 34,000 lives a year.
Additional information regarding high blood pressure can be found here.
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