Hypertension: A Silent killer Disease !

There Is Need For Regular Medical Check-ups

By Christopher Ambe Shu

James is a friend. He recently had sore throat and went to the hospital to consult and was warned to watch his lifestyle after the doctor measured his blood pressure and it read 185/100. “Your blood pressure is not good. It’s high,” the friend recalled what the doctor said. “You must pay greater attention to your health now.” The doctor then prescribed hypertension drugs for him, asked him to come in two weeks for check-up. The friend said he was not only stunned by the doctor’s diagnosis, but became worried because all along he considered himself young to suffer from hypertension. The friend, who is 30 years old, thought such a disease was for people above 50 years old. Many people of different age groups are at risk. In fact, almost everybody!
You too may be hypertensive, and because of your failure to do regular medical check-up, you are living in ignorance, just to discover one day that you are in a hospital bed. And upon finding out what brought you there, you may be told that you collapsed from high blood complications like stroke, and cardiac ailment.
Hypertension means very high blood pressure. It is generally defined as a level exceeding 140/90mm Hg that has been confirmed by health professionals on multiple occasions. High blood pressure means that there is tension in the arteries, the vessels carrying blood from the pumping heart to the rest of your body tissues and organs.
Health professionals say the systolic blood pressure (top number) represents the pressure in the arteries as the heart contracts, pumping blood into the circulation. The diastolic pressure (bottom number) stands for the pressure in the arteries as the heart relaxes after contraction. According to one medical source, “An elevation of the systolic and or diastolic blood pressure increases the risk of developing heart (cardiac) disease, kidney (renal) disease, hardening of the arteries (arteriosclerosis), eye damage, and stroke (brain damage)”. Hypertension complications are caused by chronic high blood pressure. This therefore suggests that the earlier an individual is diagnosed with high blood pressure, the better. Early diagnosis is vital so that efforts can be quickly made to normalize the blood pressure and, thereby prevent the complications.
But what causes essential hypertension? Medical researchers are yet to find the cause of essential hypertension. However, genetic factors are believed to contribute to the development of essential hypertension. Research holds that in individuals who have one or two parents with hypertension, high blood pressure is twice as common as in the general population. In the US, for example, the incidence of high blood pressure is said to be greater among blacks than among whites or Asians.
Although the cause of essential hypertension is not known, the cause of secondary hypertension can be detected thorough medical check-up. Secondary hypertension means it’s caused by a specific disorder of particular organ or blood vessel, such as your kidney or adrenal gland. Hypertension caused by diseases of the kidney, is called renal hypertension.
Generally, factors that contribute to high blood pressure include: emotional tension and stress, lack of physical exercise, overuse of salt, heavy consumption of alcohol, obesity and even aging. But why is hypertension described as a silent killer?
Hypertension is described as the silent killer, because, according to one health expert Dr Park Chan-joo, “It makes slow progress without any severe symptoms and eventually brings other serious diseases such as sclerosis of the arteries, stroke…heart failure. That is why it has to be treated or managed in the early stage for preventing any possible fatal complications in the future.” Chan-joo notes that, if you sometimes have slight symptoms in the morning, such as a headache, dizziness, or stiff neck, you might have high blood pressure. But he adds: “The fact that you have those symptoms does not always mean that you have hypertension. However, if your family members in a direct line have the disease, you should be more cautious as the potential for the disease is not only related to genetics, but to circumstances such as diet (preferring salty foods and meats) and obesity.
As you finish reading this piece, why not rush for your blood pressure measurement, and then follow your doctor’s advice. Remember that high blood pressure is a silent killer
(This article was first published by same author in The Herald Newspaper,Cameroon)