High Blood Pressure Effects
 Unlike your home's water heater, your circulatory system doesn't come equipped with a pressure-relief valve and when it goes wrong, you can't just call the guy who's crack shows when he bends over if you've got problems with it.
The effects of high blood pressure upon your body are like my brothers flatulence...silent but deadly. If the pressure increases inside of your circulatory system go unchecked, as a result the very thin vessels in your brain can burst under the extreme pressure. This causes the wholesale slaughter of brain cells known as a hemorrhagic stroke. High blood pressure can also cause plaque to buildup in on of the brain's arteries, eventually cutting off bloodflow. On top of that, kidney failure or even heart attack can also follow from dangerous plaque accumulations. How can all of this happen? It's simple... High blood pressure damages the smooth inside artery walls, kind of like taking your favorite leather belt and rubbing a knife back and forwards. The leather (your arterial walls) become frayed and begin to stick upwards giving a rough feeling to it when you run your hand over it. It's these very same rough edges on your arterial wall which serves as an anchor point for the plaque to attach itself to. Congestive Heart Failure The of course there's the plain old wear and tear that high blood pressure causes on your ticker. Over time, the extra work brought on by the sustained higher levels of pressure causes the walls to stiffen and thicken.
With these thick, rigid walls, the heart becomes less efficient at pumping, unable to push out as much bllod as it takes in. Blood backs up, the heart gives out...and the coroner scribbles "congestive heart failure" on your chart or toe tag. Chances are, hypertension hasn't appeared yet on your personal radar screen setting off the same alarms as cancer, heart disease or erectile dysfunction...but it should. At this moment, 50 to 60 million Americans have high blood pressure and that number is going to rise as the population ages and as kids today stay so sedentary. Hypertension is not a forgone conclusion even if you are "prehypertensive" and neither is a lifetime of expensive pressure lowering medications. Many prehypertensives can lower their blood pressures by modifying their lifestyles. In other words, you need a plan...not necessarily a pill.
Sam Fields 
|
