Hypertension 101 : Part 2

Lower Your Blood Pressure in Eight Weeks: A Revolutionary Program for a Longer, Healthier Life
by Stephen T. Sinatra, M.D., F.A.C.C.

(Page 2 of 2)

If a blood vessel gets clogged in the brain, you can have what we call a thrombotic stroke (thrombus = clot). Or you can have what we call a hemorrhagic (bleeding) stroke if a cerebral artery wall weakens to the point of rupture. A heart attack used to be called a coronary thrombosis, referring to a blot clot lodging in a coronary artery, cutting off blood flow to a region of the heart muscle. Now we use the term "myocardial infarction" (MI), which indicates the damage it causes (myo = muscle, cardio = heart, infarct = area of tissue death).

The Statistics are Staggering

Now you can better understand the statistics. Compared to people with controlled high blood pressure, people with uncontrolled high blood pressure are:

• seven times more likely to have a stroke
• three times more likely to develop coronary heart disease
• six times more likely to develop congestive heart failure (CHF)

Untreated, high blood pressure is the number one cause of strokes. And hypertension didn't get the nickname "the silent killer" for nothing. Often a person with hypertension has no symptoms warning of the condition, so high blood pressure can go undiagnosed for years. That's where regular checkups and blood pressure screening programs come in, and I advise everyone to take advantage of them.

We've just looked at how hypertension can cause heart disease, but note that it actually triples your risk for it, and that's independent of other traditional risk factors you may have, including family history, obesity, smoking, elevated lipid levels, sedentary lifestyle, being over fifty, being male, and stress. I even check for newer risk factors such as Lp(a), C-reactive proteins (CRP), oxidized LDL, homocysteine, and others that are screened with blood testing. Lp(a), for example, is a highly inflammatory cholesterol particle that accelerates artherosclerosis.

In fact, the combination of elevated Lp(a) and high homocysteine puts people at even greater risk for a coronary event. Add high blood pressure to the mix and you're in double handcuffs. For a woman with high blood pressure and high blood levels of homocysteine (a free-radical-inducing amino acid that causes premature aging of blood vessels), the incidence of stroke is twenty-five times higher than for the general population. So if you're a hypertensive women who doesn't know her homocysteine level, then I suggest you ask your doctor to check your blood, because reducing homocysteine is critical but simple - all you need is B vitamin support in order to lower your risk of stroke. And if you're a woman with high blood pressure and a family history of stroke, call your physician today to have a test ordered. Remember my motto: Prevention is always easier than cure.

Congestive heart failure happens when the heart is unable to pump enough blood to meet the needs of the body's tissues. Your heart muscle can become weak due to a variety of causes, such as scarring from heart attack(s), stretching and enlargement from hypertension, or other pathological conditions. The bottom line is that a weak heart can't keep the blood moving in a forward fashion; some of it backs up to the lungs, then the tissues. Folks with CHF may notice swollen ankles and fingers. A doctor or nurse can even hear fluid crackling in the lungs with a stethoscope. When the fluid backs up abruptly, making it nearly impossible to breathe, then CHF has progressed to pulmonary edema, a medical emergency.

The long and short of it is that high blood pressure puts you at high risk for the medical problems I've described and others, including damage to your kidneys, your eyes, and more.

Who Gets High Blood Pressure?

Hypertension is an equal-opportunity disease. Rich or poor, black or white, male or female, high blood pressure can strike anyone, often without warning. Unlike other diseases and ailments, you can't feel high blood pressure and it isn't heralded by chest pain, dizziness, or any other signs of an imminent problem.

And, as you can imagine, because there are no symptoms or warning signs, nearly one-third of the fifty million Americans walking around with hypertension don't even know that they have it. All too often, the first sign of trouble is a stroke or heart attack.

Practically every day in my office, a patient is shocked and frightened to be told that his or her blood pressure is too high. While no one wants to hear bad news, I assure the patient that the discovery of hypertension is the best thing that could have happened! Now that we know there's a problem, we can at least do something about it. It didn't take a crippling stoke or fatal heart attack to reveal the threatening situation.

While we don't fully understand the causes of hypertension, some people seem to be more likely to develop the problem. African Americans develop high blood pressure more often than whites, and for them it also tends to occur earlier and be more severe. In fact, hypertension affects about one out of every three African Americans. And I have to tell you that African American women are actually my toughest population to treat for blood pressure. In fact, after twenty-five years, I can honestly say that for black women, pharmacological agents alone are almost never successful. They are one group who more often needs to add lifestyle modifications, such as diet and exercise, to help reduce body mass index (if overweight status is the problem causing the hypertension). Additionally, Mexican Americans and other Hispanics are more likely to suffer from high blood pressure than white Americans.

Heredity also seems to play a role. Hypertension runs in families, so if your parents or other close relatives have high blood pressure, then you're more likely to develop the problem. In general, advancing age is a risk factor for developing high blood pressure; it occurs most often in people over age thirty-five. Men seem to develop it most often between thirty-five and fifty, while women are more likely to see their blood pressure start climbing after menopause. Men have a greater risk of becoming hypertensive than women until age fifty-five, when their respective risks are similar. But by the time they've reached age seventy-five and beyond, women are more likely to develop high blood pressure than men are.

Copyright © 2003 by Stephen T. Sinatra, M.D.

About the Author

Stephen T. Sinatra, M.D., F.A.C.C., is board certified in internal medicine and cardiology. He has special expertise in utilizing behavior modification and emotional release as tools for healthy leaving. Trained in Gestalt and bioenergetic psychotherapy, he is a certified bioenergetic analyst. Editor of monthly Phillips' HeartSense newsletter, Dr. Sinatra is a much-sought-after speaker for medical conventions and anti-aging conferences.