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Blood Pressure: Diet cures more than doctors.
- Saint Velvet
- Feb 6, 2020
- 3 min read
Blood pressure is absolutely necessary to support life.
The pressure of the blood against the walls of the arteries is needed to deliver blood to your body’s cells. This pressure in your blood vessels constantly goes up and down, adjusting to medication or drug use, temperature, activity, diet, emotional state, posture and physical state.
Blood Pressure is the amount of pressure that the inner walls of your blood vessels face as blood travels through them. Blood pressure is a result from two forces. One force is created by the heart as it pumps blood into the arteries and through the circulatory system. The other is the force in arteries as they resist the blood flow.
The pressure in your blood vessels is at its highest point with each beat of your heart. This makes sense because when your heart is maximally contracted, it has just sent a substantial volume of blood through your blood vessels so the pressure on those blood vessel walls in that moment is going to be as high as it can be. This is called your systolic blood pressure, the top number when you get a Blood Pressure (BP) reading.
The pressure in your blood vessels is at its lowest point when your heart is fully relaxed. Your heart has to fully relax after each full contraction in order to fill up with more blood that it can pump out through your blood vessels. This low point of pressure is called your diastolic blood pressure, the bottom number of your BP reading, when the heart relaxes between beats.
Blood pressure is usually measured while you are seated comfortably with your arm resting and supported. The blood pressure cuff is placed snugly around a bare upper arm with the lower edge of the cuff about and inch above the bend of the elbow, kept in place with Velcro. The head of a stethoscope is placed over the pulse of the large artery on the inside of the elbow below the cuff. A tube leads out of the cuff to a rubber bulb. A valve on a rubber inflating bulb is closed as the bulb is squeezed rapidly to inflate the cuff. As the air is pumped into the cuff, increased pressure and tightening is felt on the upper arm. Another tube leading from the cuff to a reservoir of mercury or numerated dial reads whatever pressure is in the cuff.
Using the stethoscope to hear the pulse while the air is slowly released, allowing the pressure to fall gradually, and the systolic pressure is measured when the first pulse is heard. The sound of the pulse will slowly become more distant and will finally disappear. From the moment the pulse is not heard is the diastolic pressure. The blood pressure is measured in millimeters of mercury (mmHg) and given in two numbers. In adults, the ideal top number (systolic pressure) should be less than 120 mmHg. The bottom number (diastolic pressure) should be less than 80 mmHg. A typical reading would be written: 120/80mmHg
Electronic blood pressure measuring machines are becoming the standard now as these devices are accurate for clinical use. They are conveniently located in drug stores across the country. If you use one of these to monitor your blood pressure, make sure you use the same machine each time to maintain consistency of results.
Hypertension is the term used to describe high blood pressure. It is considered high if systolic pressure (top number) is over 140 most of the time and it is considered high if diastolic pressure(bottom number) is over 90 most of the time. Pre-hypertension may be considered when systolic blood pressure is between 120 and 139 most of the time, or diastolic blood pressure is between 80 and 89 most of the time.
One of the big problems with high blood pressure is that it hardly ever causes symptoms. Uncontrolled high blood pressure is sometimes called “the silent killer” because it can be non-symptomatic. Complications of hypertension include heart attack or stroke, aneurysm, heart failure, kidney failure, eye damage and atherosclerosis.
Science has identified several factors that can increase your risk of developing high blood pressure and thus your risk for heart attack, heart disease and stroke. Risk factors include your age, race, family history, lack of exercise, excessive salt intake, obesity, tobacco use, alcohol consumption, stress levels and certain chronic conditions such as diabetes, high cholesterol or kidney disease.
Lifestyle changes such as eating healthy foods, decreasing or eliminating salt in your diet, increasing physical activity, limiting alcohol, maintaining a healthy weight, managing stress and quitting tobacco use. These changes will lower blood pressure or prevent your risk of developing the condition in the first place.
High blood pressure isn't a problem that you can treat and then ignore. It's a condition you need to manage for the rest of your life.
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