Hypertension

If you have high blood pressure (HBP), you are suffering from hypertension, or HTN. This is a long-term medical disease that causes your blood pressure to remain abnormally high. Symptoms of high blood pressure are rare. Stroke, artery disease, heart failure, atrial fibrillation, peripheral artery disease, vision loss, chronic kidney disease, and dementia are all made more likely by having high blood pressure over an extended period of time. Worldwide, high blood pressure is a leading cause of mortality from natural causes.

Primary (essential) hypertension and secondary hypertension are both types of high blood pressure. Nearly all instances (90–95 percent) are primary, which means they are the result of lifestyle or genetic causes other than diabetes or high blood pressure. Excess salt in the diet, being overweight, smoking, and drinking alcohol are all risk factors. 5–10 percent of people have secondary high blood pressure, which is defined as high blood pressure resulting from an identified cause, such as chronic kidney disease, constriction of the renal arteries or the use of birth control pills.

The systolic and diastolic pressures, which represent the highest and lowest points of blood pressure, are used to classify blood pressure. Normal resting blood pressure for most persons is between 100 and 130 millimetres of mercury (mmHg) systolic and 60 and 80 mmHg diastolic for men and women, respectively. If your resting blood pressure is consistently more than 130/80 or 140/90 mmHg, you most likely have high blood pressure. Children have a different set of rules. Over the course of a 24-hour period, ambulatory blood pressure monitoring seems to be more accurate than blood pressure measurements performed in an office.

Blood pressure may be lowered and health issues reduced by a combination of dietary and pharmaceutical adjustments. Weight reduction, exercise, less salt intake, less alcohol consumption, and a balanced diet are all lifestyle modifications. Medications for high blood pressure are used if lifestyle improvements are insufficient. 90% of individuals can have their blood pressure under control by taking three drugs at once. A longer life expectancy is linked to the use of medicine to manage moderately high arterial blood pressure (defined as >160/100 mmHg). Between 130/80 mmHg and 160/100 mmHg, the efficacy of therapy is less obvious, with some studies showing benefit and others reporting no improvement. Between 16 and 37% of the world's population has high blood pressure. An estimated 18 percent of all fatalities in 2010 were attributed to hypertension (9.4 million globally).