What Causes High Blood Pressure (Risk Factors)?

What are causes of high blood pressure (hypertension)? First, you may need to clearly understand what actually hypertension is?! Generally, it is one of the common cardiovascular diseases in this modern living. Blood pressure is the term used to describe the force of blood pushing against the walls of artery as the blood flows through the body.

You might also like to know more about common signs of high blood pressure and treatment options for low blood pressure, before continuing!

Your heart is designed to pump blood into blood vessels, and then will be distributed throughout the body. And when the blood pressure is too high, it can make your heart be hardly (work harder) to pump the blood throughout your body. This condition also can lead to hardening of your arteries -- as a result you will get higher risk of stroke & heart disease (life-threatening conditions).

What is good blood pressure?

There are two major numbers that you will get after measuring the level of your blood pressure.

1. The first number is usually higher than the second number. It describes the pressure level in your arteries when your heart beats & fills arteries with blood -- also familiar known as systolic pressure.
2. The second number describes the pressure level of your arteries when your heart in rest condition or between the beats of your heart -- also familiar called as diastolic pressure.

Good blood pressure (normal level) should be about 120/80 for healthy adults and 90/60 at birth. Other categories which mean you need to contact your doctor immediately include:

1. ‘120 to 139’ for systolic pressure and ‘80-89’ for diastolic pressure can be categorized into pre-hypertension!
2. ‘140 to 159’ for systolic pressure and ‘90-99’ for diastolic pressure are the range of ‘Stage I of hypertension’!
3. ‘160 or above’ for systolic pressure and ‘100 or above’ for diastolic pressure are the range of ‘Stage II of high blood pressure’!

Risk factors /Causes of hypertension!

High blood pressure is more common in adults than in children or kids. But for some kids that experience hypertension, heart /kidney problems are usually the common possible causes.

The exact causes of high blood pressure are still unknown! But there are some conditions (risk factors) that can increase your risk of having hypertension. Some of these conditions may include:

1. People with certain chronic health conditions, such as; sleep apnea, diabetes, and kidney disease may also have higher risk of developing hypertension.
2. Too high alcohol intake! Drinking too much alcohol can contribute to the damaged heart. Therefore, if you are a heavy drinker, you have to stop this bad habit as earlier as possible or you may need to drink alcohol in moderation -- ask to your doctor for more advices!
3. Lack of potassium! You should know that potassium has a significant contribution to keep the balance of the sodium in the cells. That’s why poor potassium in your diet can increase the accumulation of sodium in your blood, which then will also influence the performance of your heart to pump the blood.
4. Lack in physical activity! Inactive individual are more likely to experience higher heart rates, which means will make his/her heart work harder in each contraction & eventually increase the pressure in the arteries walls. So it is important to keep active in the daily activities -- don’t forget also to do your exercise regularly!
5. You have a family history of hypertension.
6. Emotional stress! We all agree that stress is bad thing for your health, including for your blood pressure. Stress can cause temporarily hypertension in the dramatically rise.
7. High intake of sodium or salt! Many studies found that sodium can cause/make the body to retain fluid, and this can increase the level of blood pressure.
8. Overweight! More weight that you have, more blood needed to supply adequate nutrients & O2 to the tissues. This condition can cause the rise of blood volume circulating in the arteries, which then can increase the pressure to the walls of the arteries.
9. Tobacco! Chewing tobacco or cigarette smoking can increase your risk of hypertension -- even the lining of artery walls also can be damaged by some chemicals in tobacco.
10. Age! Your risk of hypertension increases as you get older. That’s why this health problem is pretty common in elderly people.

Other possible risk factors are lack of vitamin D and pregnancy. Vitamin D may help your kidney on producing certain enzymes that can affect the blood pressure level. And sometimes, high blood pressure in women may also be contributed by pregnancy.
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Reference: MayoClinic and WebMD
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