High Blood Pressure-Facts.

High blood pressure, also known as hypertension, is the most common cardiovascular disease.

If you have high blood pressure, you’ll probably find out about it during a routine checkup. Or, you may have noticed a problem while taking your own blood pressure. But be sure to see your doctor for a definite diagnosis, and take the opportunity to learn what you can do to bring your blood pressure under control.

Blood pressure refers to the force of blood pushing against artery walls as it courses through the body. Like air in a tire or water in a hose, blood fills arteries to a certain capacity. Just as too much air pressure can damage a tire or too much water pushing through a garden hose can damage the hose, high blood pressure can threaten healthy arteries and lead to life-threatening conditions such as heart disease and stroke.

Hypertension is the leading cause of stroke and a major cause of heart attack. In the United States alone, approximately 73 million people have high blood pressure.

How Is Blood Pressure Measured?

A blood pressure reading appears as two numbers. The first and higher of the two is a measure of systolic pressure, or the pressure in the arteries when the heart beats and fills them with blood. The second number measures diastolic pressure, or the pressure in the arteries when the heart rests between beats.

Normal blood pressure rises steadily from about 90/60 at birth to about 120/80 in a healthy adult. If someone were to take your blood pressure immediately after you’d delivered a speech or jogged five miles, the reading would undoubtedly seem high. This is not necessarily cause for alarm: It’s natural for blood pressure to rise and fall with changes in activity or emotional state.

It’s also normal for blood pressure to vary from person to person, even from one area of your body to another. But when blood pressure remains consistently high, talk with your doctor about treatment. Consistently high blood pressure forces the heart to work far beyond its capacity. Along with injuring blood vessels, hypertension can damage the brain, eyes, and kidneys.

People with blood pressure readings of 140/90 or higher, taken on at least 2 occasions, are said to have high blood pressure. If the pressure remains high, your doctor will probably begin treatment. People with blood pressure readings of 200/120 or higher need treatment immediately. People with diabetes are treated if their blood pressure rises above 130/80, since they already have a high risk of heart disease.

Researchers identified people with blood pressures slightly higher than 120/80 as a category at high risk for developing hypertension. This condition is called prehypertension and affects an estimated 50 million American men and women. Prehypertension is now known to increase the likelihood of damage to arteries and the heart, brain, and kidneys, so many doctors are now recommending early treatment.

http://www.webmd.com/hypertension-high-blood-pressure/guide/understanding-high-blood-pressure-basics

Related:

Doctors in the UK, using electrical pulses to stimulate nerve centers deep within the brain, report reduced high blood pressure that can’t be controlled with medication, WebMD reports.

Researchers made the discovery after implanting a device that works as an electric stimulator of a region of the brain in a 55-year-old man who had developed chronic pain on the left side of his body following a stroke.

Though his pain eventually returned after four months, his doctors report that their patient’s previously uncontrolled blood pressure has remained normal for nearly three years. That was a surprise because experts had long thought that pain had to be reduced to see a reduction in blood pressure.

“Pain creates stress and that can have an effect on one’s blood pressure,” says Nikunj J. Patel, MD, a neurosurgeon at Frenchay Hospital in Bristol UK, and an author of the case study. Patel says that makes the impact of the case study “startling and exciting” because if  studies bear the findings out, deep brain stimulation may one day help people with hypertension whose blood pressure remains uncontrolled on multiple medications.

http://www.redorbit.com/news/health/1984717/blood_pressure_decreased_with_deepbrain_stimulation/index.html