Tag Archives: high blood pressure

Increase Exercise Decrease High Blood Pressure

According to new research, for people with high blood pressure, regular exercise can help save their lives. It may sound like a dramatic statement, but experts say the information is on target and can help millions of people with high blood pressure. The study’s conclusions were simple: Elevating one’s heart rate for a mere 30 minutes a day can be the most important lifestyle change people with high blood pressure can make. Simply put, if you suffer from high blood pressure it is imperative that you carve out time to bike, walk, run, swim or participate in some other physical … Continue reading →

Marriage and Blood Pressure

Make all the jokes you want about how being married can raise your blood pressure… a new study from Brigham Young University has shown that a happy marriage can lead to lower blood pressure. In fact, a happy marriage seems to have some big health benefits. Study participants included more than two hundred married adults and 99 single adults. All participants wore a blood pressure monitor for a full day and night. Basically, the researchers wanted to see blood pressure levels during a normal day — periodic readings at a clinic don’t give an accurate representation of the changes in … Continue reading →

High Blood Pressure Linked to Dementia

Did you really need ANOTHER reason to take care of your high blood pressure? Here’s one for you — high blood pressure has been linked to dementia by research from Columbia University Medical Center in New York. Researchers tracked more than nine hundred elderly people in New York starting in 1992. The average age of the study participants was seventy-six. None of the participants had any form of cognitive impairment (dementia) when the study began. Participants were examined every eighteen months for more than four years. Approximately one third of study participants developed mild cognitive impairment during the course of … Continue reading →

Hey, Chocoholics!

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The next set of evidence about the health benefits of chocolate has arrived. A study from the University of Cologne in Germany found that dark chocolate seems to have a lowering effect on your blood pressure! Before you go digging into that box of chocolates, keep reading. According to the study, it doesn’t take a lot of chocolate to produce the beneficial effects for your heart. The volunteers in the German study ate about six grams of dark chocolate every day — that’s about one and a half Hershey’s Kisses. If ever there was a study I wish I could … Continue reading →

Hot Dogs and Your Health

What goes better with summer’s favorite pastime than a juicy hotdog? According to the National Hotdog and Sausage Council baseball fans will eat almost 28 million hotdogs this year. Personally, I can’t stand hotdogs… and I’m not a huge fan of baseball either. (I wonder if one begets the other?) In fact, I cringe whenever I hear my young daughter tell me that she was fed a hotdog at a friend or relative’s home. Forgive me. It’s just that I have a long-standing dislike for the popular frankfurter mainly because I spent the better part of my childhood hearing about … Continue reading →

High Blood Pressure Fact and Fiction

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There is a lot of misinformation out there about high blood pressure. Do you know the truth from the myth? Fiction: Symptoms of high blood pressure include nervousness, sweating, and trouble sleeping. Fact: High blood pressure has NO outward symptoms. It’s called the “silent killer” for a reason. The only way to know if you have high blood pressure is to get your blood pressure checked. One in four adults in the United States has high blood pressure, and a third of them don’t even know it. Fiction: High blood pressure readings at the doctor’s office just mean that you’re … Continue reading →

High Blood Pressure and Women

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Approximately seventy-two million Americans have some form of high blood pressure — and nearly half of them are women. Women may be particularly at risk for developing high blood pressure. Risk factors include: Taking birth control pills. For some women, taking the Pill can affect your blood pressure. Things can get even more complicated if you have other risk factors like obesity, a family history of high blood pressure, or a smoking habit. Ask your doctor about your risk for high blood pressure before you start taking birth control pills, and get your blood pressure checked at least every six … Continue reading →

What Can You Do About High Blood Pressure?

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Some risk factors for high blood pressure are things you can’t help. You can’t change your race, or your gender, or your family history. However, there are some things you CAN do to help lower your high blood pressure. Lose weight. Many people with hypertension are also overweight. Losing weight will help reduce the strain on your heart (and other organs) and will often lead to a drop in blood pressure. Eat a healthy diet. Cutting back on salt can help lower blood pressure. Make sure your diet has plenty of fruits and veggies and try to stick to fat … Continue reading →

Why Lower Your Blood Pressure?

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High blood pressure can hurt your body in different ways. Most importantly, is the strain it puts on your heart and arteries. If your heart works harder than normal for a long time, it can get bigger, and an enlarged heart can have a hard time keeping up with your body’s needs. Of all the people in the United States with high blood pressure: 11 percent aren’t doing anything about it — no special diet, no medication. 25 percent are on therapy for it, but aren’t doing enough. Only 34 percent of people with high blood pressure are doing enough … Continue reading →

Are You At Risk For High Blood Pressure?

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Ready for a kind of scary fact? One in three adult Americans has high blood pressure. Of those people, approximately one third don’t know they have high blood pressure. Do you know what your last blood pressure reading was? Do you know what it meant? A normal, healthy adult blood pressure reading is 120/80 mm Hg or below. Readings between 120-139 systolic and 80-89 diastolic puts you into a category known as prehypertension, where you are at risk for developing high blood pressure. Anything consistently above 140/90 mm Hg is considered high blood pressure. There are some risk factors for … Continue reading →