The Pros And Cons Of Hypertension

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Vicki is a 42 year-old African American woman who was recently diagnosed with hypertension. Hypertension, also know as high blood pressure is the force of blood pushing against the arteries as it flows through them. Arteries are the blood vessels that carry the oxygenated blood from the heart to the rest of the body’s tissues.
One of the main reasons hypertension can be so dangerous is because you may not even know you’re suffering from it, in fact, nearly one-third of patients suffering from hypertension don’t even know that they have it (WebMD 2015). The number one reason hypertension goes undetected for so long is because in most cases, there are no clear warning signs of the blood pressure being high. Some signs/symptoms …show more content…

Experts are now looking into how socioeconomic disadvantages and lifestyle factors may add to these risks. African-Americans are more likely to: be sensitive to the effects of salt on blood pressure, be overweight/obese, and are more likely to have a family history of diabetes. Other things that may make up for the difference in high blood pressure risk are: less access to health care and health care information, lower levels of education and income, lack of resources for a healthy lifestyle, stressful lifestyle from things such as unemployment and living in neighborhoods with noise, violence, and poverty, smoking and diets high in salt, fat, and sugar, and low in vegetables and fiber. There are interventions that have proven to reduce the Page 4 impact of high blood pressure by; reducing dietary salt, making fresh fruit and vegetables more affordable and accessible, implementing weight loss and exercise programs and utilizing blood pressure lowering medications. "The current focus of many health systems is on treating hypertension directly, and while treatments are effective in reducing morbidity and mortality, they are also very costly. Focusing efforts on primary prevention or treatment may have a significant impact on costs in the long term,” says McBrien. (McBrien

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