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I was reading something about Hypertension I want to share it with you because High blood pressure is more common and more severe in black people. But you can still take steps to protect yourself and treat the disease effectively with lifestyle changes and medications. Please take care of your health members of haitiwebs.

What is Blood pressure?

Blood pressure is determined by the amount of blood pumped by the heart, and the size and condition of the arteries. Many other factors can affect blood pressure, including volume of water in the body; salt content of the body; condition of the kidneys, nervous system, or blood vessels; and levels of various hormones in the body.

What is Hypertension ?

Hypertension means high blood pressure. This generally means:

• Systolic blood pressure is consistently over 140 (systolic is the "top" number of your blood pressure measurement, which represents the pressure generated when the heart beats)
• Diastolic blood pressure is consistently over 90 (diastolic is the "bottom" number of your blood pressure measurement, which represents the pressure in the vessels when the heart is at rest)

Either or both of these numbers may be too high.

Symptoms

Usually, no symptoms are present. Occasionally, you may experience a mild headache. If your headache is severe, or if you experience any of the symptoms below, you must be seen by a doctor right away. These may be a sign of dangerously high blood pressure (called malignant hypertension) or a complication from high blood pressure.

• tiredness
• confusion
• vision changes
• angina-like chest pain (crushing chest pain)
• heart failure
• blood in urine
• nosebleed
• irregular heartbeat
• ear noise or buzzing

Complications

• hypertensive heart disease
• heart attacks
• congestive heart failure
• blood vessel damage (arteriosclerosis)
• aortic dissection
• kidney damage
• kidney failure
• stroke
• brain damage
• loss of vision

Prevention

Lifestyle changes may help control high blood pressure:

• Lose weight if you are overweight. Excess weight adds to strain on the heart. In some cases, weight loss may be the only treatment needed.
• Exercise to help your heart.
• Adjust your diet as needed. Decrease fat and sodium -- salt, MSG, and baking soda all contain sodium. Increase fruits, vegetables, and fiber.

if you're black, pay special attention to your blood pressure even if you think you're healthy.

That's because high blood pressure (hypertension) affects certain groups of people differently than others. And for black people , high blood pressure often occurs earlier in life, is more severe and has more complications.

blacks often do not get treatement until their blood pressure has been high for so long that the vital organs have already started to suffer damage.

This information is not from Ania if you think you have that symptoms contact your physician pi bone se gram matin

sources: Lois white

Medline plus