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 high blood pressure that you can change, and some you can’t.
- Obesity. If your BMI (body mass index) is 30 or higher, you are more likely to develop high blood pressure.
- Lack of activity. This can lead to weight gain, which can increase your chances of high blood pressure.
- Salt intake. Eating too much salt can increase blood pressure for some people.
- Alcohol consumption. Regular and heavy alcohol use can shoot your blood pressure way up.
- Stress. Though stress responses vary from person to person, it can influence your blood pressure.
- Race. African Americans are more likely to develop high blood pressure earlier in life. Often, the problem is more severe than in other races. More than forty percent of African Americans have high blood pressure.
- Heredity. If your parents and/or other close blood relatives had blood pressure problems, you are more likely to have them as well.
- Age. Most problems with blood pressure begin after the age of 35. Men often develop high blood pressure between the ages of 35 and 55. Women often see problems begin after menopause.
And if you think you don’t need to worry about high blood pressure, think again. Hypertension was a primary or contributing cause of death in more than 300,000 deaths in the United States in 2002. As many as sixty-five million Americans are living with high blood pressure right now.
(All statistics from the American Heart Association.)