Health Information Center

Essentially, blood pressure is the measure of how hard your heart has to work in order to circulate blood through your body. There are two factors that affect blood pressure: the amount of blood being pumped out of the heart and the amount of resistance as the heart works to pump blood into the general circulation. To understand this better consider this: water running through a narrow hose as opposed through a wider hose. What happens here is that it takes less pressure to pump water into a hose with a large diameter than it does to pump water into a hose with a small one

When at rest, the heart beats about sixty to ninety times per minute. And, with each beat blood is pumped into the arteries which are the pipeline that carries blood throughout the body. Arteries have the ability to expand and contract. An increase in the resistance or volume needs a greater effort by the heart to push the blood forward into the arteries. Over time, the heart, because of increased work may become enlarged and less efficient. Moreover, the arteries may also become damaged because of scarring and loss of elasticity.

If one does not get treatment for high blood pressure, there is the probability that heart disease may occur. Or, there is the risk of getting a stroke, congestive heart failure, and possibly kidney disease. Continue reading ‘High Blood Pressure and the Risk of Heart Disease’ »

Is it possible that Obstructive Sleep Apnea (OSA) causes Alzheimer’s Disease (AD)? I believe so. As a retired clinical neurologist and former patient with Obstructive Sleep Apnea, I have a special interest in sleep disorders medicine. I am thoroughly convinced of the connection between OSA and AD and will remain so until credible studies prove otherwise. Numerous short term studies have been done on cognition (mental processes) and sleep or the lack thereof, but there are few or no long term studies to determine OSA’s relationship to Alzheimer’s Disease (AD) and/or the other dementias.

Many polysomnograms (PSGs) or in lab sleep tests have been done on patients with AD revealing an incidence of OSA of up to seventy to ninety percent.  The assumption has been that AD causes OSA, or they just happened to coincide, but I contend that OSA is the cause of AD. Continue reading ‘Can A Sleep Problem Give You Alzheimer's?’ »

A good friend of mine has high blood pressure which he controls by using prescribed medication. I see him down the local club about three nights a week for a few pints of beer and a couple of games of snooker. I always know when he’s going to have his pressure taken the following morning because he cuts his alcohol intake down to one pint.

He does it because he’s afraid that if his pressure is high his doctor will increase the dosage of his medication! Who is he trying to fool? Only himself. If he were to adopt a sensible approach and eat a healthy diet and get some regular exercise he would probably be able to cut down, or even eliminate, the medication that he’s already taking… and still be able to enjoy a few pints of beer.

The moral of this true story is quite simply that if you have high blood pressure you owe it to yourself (and nobody else) to lower it. After all, it really is your life in your hands, because if the condition is left untreated it can have dire consequences. Continue reading ‘Start Lowering Your High Blood Pressure Today’ »

High blood pressure (hypertension) is among the first causes of stroke. Almost 70% of all strokes are caused by hypertension, the statistics say. Moreover a person with hypertension is four times more likely to have stroke than a person with healthy blood pressure.

Having read the above, you probably have at least a few questions ready in your mind. We have tried to answer them below.

Continue reading ‘High Blood Pressure and Stroke’ »

When your physician told you that you had high blood pressure did you understand what he was saying. No doubt you heard the numbers defining the levels of your pressure and that they placed you in a category above normal but did you understand what it was all about or did your doctor take the time to explain everything to you. Often being told you have hypertension is quite a traumatic event, not on a par with being told you have cancer or some other life threatening disease, but traumatic nevertheless. Although it can indeed be life threatening. It just never appears as being an imminent threat. We always think we have time which is really crazy because you never know when a heart attack or stroke might hit you especially if you have had it for a while.

It is often only when you get home that it begins to sink in and you begin thinking of all the questions you should have asked at the time. What does this mean? How does that affect me? You know, all those sorts of questions. To help you out here are some of the more common terms used when talking about high blood pressure.

* Hypotension – this means you have low blood pressure.
* Hypertension – this is the same as saying you have high blood pressure and refers to measurements above 140/90.
* Systolic Pressure – systolic pressure is the force, experienced by the walls of your arteries, when the heart beats pushing the blood around your body. This is measured in terms of millimeters of mercury. Continue reading ‘High Blood Pressure – Make Sure You Understand What Your Doctor is Telling You’ »

What is High Blood Pressure: – Blood pressure is a measure of the force that the blood applies to the walls of the arteries as it flows through them. It’s normal for blood pressure to increase when you exert yourself, or when you feel stressed or anxious. But if your blood pressure is time after time higher than the healthy level when at rest, this is high blood pressure (hypertension). Your blood pressure is at its highest when the heart beats, pumping the blood. This is called systolic pressure. When the heart is at rest, between beats, your blood pressure falls. This is the diastolic pressure.

Blood pressure is characterized by nonstandard pressure levels in the arteries. The blood pressure in a healthy, normal person is 90/60mmhg. When the pressure is lower than the normal, it interferes with the well being of a person. When the pressure increases, it causes damage to the heart and sometimes proves fatal. And also read more on http://www.ayurvedicherbalcure.com/Herbs/arjuna.html Continue reading ‘Information About on High Blood Pressure and High Cholesterol’ »