Understanding the Causes and Risks of High Blood Pressure

High Blood Pressure Symptoms

Recently, the guidelines for diagnosing high blood pressure have been changed!  It used to be a blood pressure of 140/90 mmHg, and it has been decreased to 130/80 mmHg. This means that a more significant part of our country will be diagnosed with hypertension. But what causes high blood pressure in the first place, and how can one avoid or treat it effectively? This is the most important question on the Americans’ asking list.

I wrote this post to address potential questions you might not realize you have.

High Blood Pressure (Hypertension)

Are there any symptoms? What Causes High Blood Pressure?

Many patients say, “I feel fine,” but why do I have to lower my salt intake?

Why do I have to exercise? Why do I have to take this medication? So they stop. This medication is dangerous!

High blood pressure is also called the Silent Killer precisely because you feel fine—

until you’re not. What does that even mean? No symptoms, and then one day you have a massive heart attack, and unfortunately, you don’t survive it.

Scary, right?

So what do you need to know about high blood pressure? Risk factors—what will make your blood pressure high? Protective factors—what will help lower your blood pressure?

These include the following:

1. Lifestyle
   1. Diet
   2. Exercise
   3. Cigarette use
   4. Alcohol use

These lifestyle choices are among the most common answers to the question: what causes high blood pressure?

2. Medications

What you should know about Diet:

Salt is NOT GOOD, especially in excess! Indeed, many of us have heard this advice previously.

But why?

The World Health Organization (WHO) has recommended a daily intake of salt of less than 5 g per day. Currently, people around the world consume, on average, about 9–12 grams per day. In the US, the average American consumes >3.4g per day. The 2015-2020 Dietary Guidelines for Americans recommend that Americans consume less than 2.3 grams per day.

We are eating way too much salt!

The CDC listed ten foods that make up more than 40% of our sodium/salt intake:

1. Bread and rolls
2. Cold cuts and cured meats such as deli or packaged ham or turkey
3. Pizza
4. Fresh and processed poultry
5. Soups
6. Sandwiches such as cheeseburgers
7. Cheese
8. Pasta dishes (not including macaroni and Cheese).
9. Examples of meat-mixed dishes include meatloaf with tomato sauce.
10. Examples of snacks include chips, pretzels, and popcorn.

The above list is copied directly from the CDC website for salt reduction.

What makes a diet high in salt potentially harmful to your health?

Your kidneys play a crucial role in your blood pressure as they respond to the amount of salt in your blood. If it’s a bit higher than usual, your kidneys can filter it out, and there’s no issue. The problem is when there is too much salt, more salt than your kidneys can filter out. But why is this a problem?

Salt causes water retention. More salt in your diet means your kidneys can’t flush it out in your pee, so you retain water, raising your blood pressure. This water retention is a key mechanism behind what causes high blood pressure in individuals with high sodium intake.

Think of blood as the cars on a highway. Your arteries are a highway. More cars = congestion, which means blood will move slowly. Your heart would need to shove that blood to the rest of your body a lot harder than it normally would have to.

Occasional higher blood pressure is not necessarily harmful. But your heart is a muscle! Think about it as your bicep.

The more weight you lift… the bigger the bicep will get. Bigger muscles need more blood because muscles need oxygen to have the strength and be able to work perfectly.

The issue with your heart is that once the heart is working so hard to pump blood, it will need much more oxygen than it is getting, and a part of your heart will not

receive the needed amount of blood or oxygen. It will get damaged or even die. This is what a heart attack is called: an ischaemic (no oxygen) event, or infarction.

Say I wake up in the morning and decide to have scrambled eggs using butter, a loaf of bread, a slice of Cheese, and a cup of coffee with milk. Great breakfast, right, not overeating, and it’s just what I need?

Let’s look at how much salt I just had, and this is from the National Institute of Health (NIH). 

1 piece of Cheese (28 g) = 112mg of salt

1 slice of bread (50g) = 125mg of salt

1.6 oz milk (1 g) = .5mg of salt

An Egg (57g)= 45.6mg

1 tsp of Butter (4.73g) = 23.65mg of salt

One teaspoon of salt, which weighs 5 grams, adds 1900 milligrams of salt when sprinkled on top of the egg.

Total salt in my breakfast:

2206 mg = 2.206 g of salt.

That is already almost half of the recommended salt intake by the WHO and nearly my recommended daily consumption by the CDC… and it was only one meal!!!!

You can see why adding salt to anything is bad. Every food item already has salt in it!!! Adding extra salt is a health risk. Just 1 tsp of salt on food is equivalent to almost 2 g of the daily requirement.

So definitely consider lowering the amount of salt you add and how much butter you use. Replace butter with olive oil or sesame oil because they have 0 mg of salt!!!

Canned foods are also very high in salt to allow the food to last in your pantry! So try your best to make things from scratch! These include soups, canned corn, canned peas, and canned beans, to name a few. Anything in a box or anything in a can should immediately make you look at the label and look at how much salt is in there.

My brother-in-law has high blood pressure; his doctor advised him to consume items that have ≤3% sodium on the label. I’m uncertain about the precision of this recommendation, but consult your own medical professionals!

Next.

Exercise!

Why should I exercise?

How can that possibly lower my blood pressure? Studies have shown that those who exercise have a much lower risk of developing high blood pressure. In fact, lack of physical activity is one of the lifestyle factors most commonly cited when discussing what causes high blood pressure.

What if you already have it?

Exercise can help decrease your blood pressure!

How?

Again, let’s consider your heart to be a muscle. Let’s say it’s your bicep. Let’s say you have never lifted weights—ever. Then, you visit the gym one day and attempt to lift a 10 lb dumbbell. You will break a sweat, you will work really, really hard to lift those 10 pounds with your bicep, and maybe you can do it, but maybe your bicep just gives up, and you drop the weight. However, if you consistently engage in exercise and strengthen that muscle, lifting those 10 pounds will demand significantly less effort. It will become easier, and your muscles will be more resilient. It will be easier, and your muscles won’t give up on you.

Your heart is the same way. If you work out often, your heart will be strong enough to send the same amount of blood with less effort. Don’t confuse this with the condition of long-term high blood pressure, which can cause your heart to enlarge. There is a difference between a big heart and a strong heart.

Have you ever heard of the not-so-buff but still fit guy that can lift more than the big buff guy? Well, the same applies here.

A big heart is not beneficial. A strong heart is! Exercise gives you a strong heart!

In fact, studies indicate that regular exercise can lower your systolic (the top number) blood pressure by 5-8 mmHg. For example, if your normal systolic blood pressure is 136 mmHg and you start exercising, it can decrease to 128 mmHg. This change can shift your diagnosis from Hypertensive to healthy! There’s no need to diagnose yourself. The procedure can be done without any medications!

Oh, a small piece of info here: you are diagnosed with high blood pressure and take medications that normalize it, meaning they bring it down to normal levels; it does not mean you are no longer a hypertensive patient (person with high blood pressure). You still hold that diagnosis! I encountered this scenario a few times in the hospital setting.

I would ask a patient if they had any chronic medical conditions like high blood pressure, high cholesterol, or diabetes. They would say no. Then, I would ask what medications do you take?, and they would start naming a bunch of blood pressure medications. So I would tell them, and they would reply, “well, it is normal now, so no, I don’t have high blood pressure anymore.”

Okay, sorry for the small tangent!

Learn how to manage high blood pressure quickly.

For many people, lifestyle changes aren’t enough to manage what causes high blood pressure—and that’s where medications come in.

Next, Medications

I won’t list all the medications because there are far too many to mention. Examples of medications include water pills, pills that dilate arteries, pills that improve heart function, and pills that interact with hormones affecting your body’s salt levels. 

Therefore, I will not provide any specific names, but I want to emphasize this point. It is so important to take the medications the way they are prescribed. If there are any complaints, tell your doctor!

Example:

“Whenever I take it, I feel dizzy or lightheaded, so I take half.” 

I would say this. Please schedule an appointment or call the office to speak with your doctor. Please inform your doctor about your current experiences and seek their guidance on the next steps. Chances are, they might adjust the timing of your medication. Never alter what you take or change how much you take yourself without telling your doc first. Continue taking it as prescribed until told otherwise by your doc.

Furthermore, many times, these meds might make you feel weird or odd at first. It’s normal. A lot of patients feel that way, and it’s also a reason why many are taking the medication without telling their docs. The weird feeling will pass. Ask your doctors what you might feel and what you should do if you feel that way. To avoid panic when you experience a strange side effect, ask these questions before taking any medication.

What else should you do?

• • Stop smoking! Immediately!

   What else can you do?

  Do not binge drink! If you are a regular drinker, Lower your alcohol intake. Alcohol can increase your blood pressure. 

  Although research now shows that MODERATE alcohol is beneficial for all-cause mortality, it’s important to discuss what is too much with your doctors! I talk about it on my YouTube channel, in case you’re interested in checking it out.

  What else?

  Find a way to relax. Take a relaxing bath, meditate, and do some yoga (you exercise and meditate all at the same time).

As the new guidelines for diagnosing high blood pressure shift from 140 to 130 mmHg, the number of individuals receiving this diagnosis will increase. It is so important that you inform yourselves more about this issue.

A few things to know:

Don’t take Viagra if you are taking nitrates (which is a high blood pressure medication). Always ask your doctors if you have high blood pressure, are taking medications, and would like to take Viagra.

The interaction of Viagra and certain meds can cause a significant drop in your blood pressure, and this is something you do not want either.

Bottom line,

Understanding what causes high blood pressure is crucial, as many of its contributing factors are behavioral and can be managed through healthier lifestyle choices. Sometimes, this is no longer enough, and medications must be used. Don’t be afraid to ask questions. I used to love patients who had so many questions because it meant they truly wanted to make a change in their lives and that they took their health seriously and saw it as a priority. Therefore, do not hesitate to become more involved and informed.

Lastly, ask yourself this question:

“If I had known then what I know now, would I have done things to prevent it, like changing my lifestyle? Eat healthily? Exercise more? Taken the medications I was given the way they were prescribed?”

If you answer yes to this question, then that’s a giant step in the right direction!