The hypertension epidemic - are you part of it?

Hypertension is reaching epidemic proportions and you might be part of it. The World Health Organization has predicted that there will be a 60 percent increase in the number of adults with hypertension over the next twenty years.

That’s a lot of people and a frightening figure.

Hypertension is a term used to describe consistently high blood pressure over a period of at least six months and can have a variety of causes, with the most prevalent in Western society being obesity.

Shockingly hypertension is now a condition affecting the young. Poor high fat diet and general inactivity mean that an increasing number of teenagers are suffering from high blood pressure and are at risk of serious health problems.

Unfortunately, far too few of us are taking hypertension seriously even though it can lead to kidney disease, heart disease and stroke.

Unfortunately, more often than not, high blood pressure in women presents no symptoms so you may go through your normal day completely unaware that you are at risk of cardiovascular disease and other problems. Certainly if you have headaches, dizziness or blurred vision the underlying cause could be hypertension and hypertension can also be a contributory factor to low libido.

The risk of hypertension increases with age although the simple fact of getting older does not cause high blood pressure.

The root causes lie elsewhere with obesity being the single highest contributory factor.   It’s no coincidence that the hypertension epidemic goes hand in hand with the explosion of obesity in westernized cultures.

Other contributors to the hypertension epidemic are smoking, high sodium intake (salt), high cholesterol, lack of physical activity and a high intake of alcohol.

If any of these bad habits sound familiar then at least you know you can do something about your hypertension risk without resorting to drugs. Simple lifestyle changes can often do the trick.

So if you think you may be at risk - examine your lifestyle and make positive changes to protect yourself from hypertension. Take care of your body and you’ll decrease the risk of hypertension and the health problems that come with it. You only have one life, after all, so it’s worth making sure it’s a long and healthy one.

You don’t have to be part of the hypertension epidemic.

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