Facts Aboout High Blood Pressure
Here's a question that could save your life — how high is your blood pressure?Don't know? The fact is, high blood pressure can lead to heart attacks, stroke, kidney failure and even blindness. But most people don't really understand what it is, or what causes it.
Our reporter Dr Andrew Rochford is going to tackle some of the misconceptions about high blood pressure and tell you how you can lower yours if you've got the problem.
What is blood pressure?
Andrew's visits cardiologist Dr David Colquhoun to have his blood pressure checked. The doctor says about a third of deaths in Australia and worldwide are related to high blood pressure.
"Blood pressure is the pressure in your arteries throughout the body. We need a certain pressure to pump the blood around the body. It's where the pressure is higher than it needs to be that it can cause disease and problems," says Dr Colquhoun.
Normal blood pressure is 120 over 80 — the first figure is the important one and anything over 140 is considered high.
Dr Colquhoun: Okay Andrew. Your blood pressure right now is 150 on 90. But your heart rate's up a little bit. You're a bit excited.
Andrew: I'm a bit nervous. That's 'white coat syndrome' isn't it?
Dr Colquhoun: Exactly. When you relax it'll be 120, 110 — something like that.
'White coat syndrome' is the tendency of people to get a bit nervous when being tested in a doctor's surgery. It's when your blood pressure is high all the time that you need to worry.
Postal worker Glen Freestone got the bad news 20 years ago: "I was working at the delivery centre in town and they employed nurses to do health checks. And I went down and had a health check and she called me back and she said, 'I think you'd better go and see your doctor — you've got high blood pressure' and I had no idea."
That's the thing about high blood pressure — it has no symptoms. That's how it earns its nickname, the 'silent killer'.
But the contributing factors are loud and clear — just ask Glen: "Late nights, drinking, smoking, partying …"
Yes, all the usual suspects.
High blood pressure can be caused by:
• Drinking and smoking
• Lack of exercise
• Poor diet
• Too much cholesterol
• Hereditary factors
• And the big one — stress!
"When you're feeling stressed, at that moment your blood pressure goes up then it comes down again. So in susceptible individuals unrelenting stress does increase the risk of high blood pressure," says Dr Colquhoun.
Now most of us consider high blood pressure an old person's disease but 36-year-old Kristen Wrightson was diagnosed with high blood pressure at the tender age of 17.
"I had an appointment to see my local GP. As a routine health check he took my blood pressure. I think he was quite surprised at how high it was and arranged for me to see a cardiologist that very afternoon."
It wasn't until years later that the cause of Kristen's high blood pressure was uncovered and found to be a rare tumour called a reninoma on one of her kidneys.
Kristen opted to have the kidney removed to get her blood pressure under control, so she could have children. But it's important to remember that Kristen's case is not typical — in 95 percent of high blood pressure cases the cause is lifestyle-related.
How can we prevent high blood pressure in the first place?
Dr Colquhoun's simple three-point plan for avoiding high blood pressure:
• Relaxation. The first step is relaxation and taking time out. Try and set aside half-an-hour for yourself each day to do nothing but relax. Try meditating, or if you're not into meditation, read a book. Taking it easy tackles one of the major causes of high blood pressure — stress.
• Exercise. The next step is to exercise regularly.
"It's interesting with exercise. While you're actually exercising your blood pressure goes up, but if you exercise regularly, during the non exercising period it's lower than otherwise. Going for a walk 20 minutes most days can lower blood pressure by around five millilitres of mercury."
• Diet. The third step is taking care of your diet.
"As the population is getting more overweight, the incidence of high blood pressure is going up," says Dr Colquhoun.
A quick solution here is what the doctor calls the Mediterranean Diet — lots of fish, olives, fresh fruit and vegetables.
It's what Glen did and it really paid off.
"Now I feel really good. I feel fitter now than I have for ten years. It's a good life," says Glen.
"Those on a Mediterranean diet have a much lower risk associated with their high blood pressure. And in fact figures from Greece show low levels of high blood pressure — 400 percent difference in death rate from heart disease. So get on the Mediterranean Diet," says Dr Colquhoun.
Those are the do's, here are the don'ts:
• Don't drink too much.
"One to two standard drinks a day absolutely protects against heart disease. Above that blood pressure tends to go up. Just simply cutting back on the alcohol will cure high blood pressure," says Dr Colquhoun.
• Smoking is a big no-no. It makes your arteries more rigid which means blood is harder to pump around.
Dr Colquhoun says that by sticking to his three-point plan most of us can enjoy normal blood pressure.
"If you've got definite mild high blood pressure, mild between 140 and about 160, 170, what we know is most of those individuals if they attend to lifestyle will cure their blood pressure," he says.
Conclusion
Blood pressure really is a complicated area and much of what we think is true about it is actually misconception. But as is so often the case with everything is to do with health, the answer is pretty simple: take care with your diet, get some exercise and see your doctor about your blood pressure.
Fast facts
• We often hear that having too much salt in your food can raise your blood pressure. Is it true? Yes! If you eat too much salt, your body tries to dilute it by conserving fluids in the bloodstream, which means there's more to pump around — that increases your blood pressure. On average, we consume twice as much salt as we need.
