Blood Pressure

Serena Proeung
English 111
Professor Holder
Blood Pressure Have you had your blood pressure taken recently? If you see your doctor for your yearly checkup, you would notice that the first thing they would do is check your vitals. Taking your blood pressure is one of the first steps when taking your vitals. Blood pressure refers to the force of blood pushing against artery walls as it courses through the body .Although many of you may not think that pressure of the blood system is not such a fascinating concept, it does play a very important role when taking vitals.
Blood pressure is the force of your blood pushing against the walls of your arteries. Each time your heart beats, it pumps out blood into the arteries. Your blood pressure is highest when your heart beats, pumping the blood. This is called systolic pressure. When your heart is at rest, between beats, your blood pressure falls. This is the diastolic pressure. Your blood pressure reading uses these two numbers. Usually they're written one above or before the other, such as 120/80. If your blood pressure reading is 90/60 or lower, you have low blood pressure. An adults average blood pressure is 120/80 mm. Children have a much lower pressure than adults but the older you get the higher it’ll be. Some people have low blood pressure all the time. They have no symptoms and their low readings are normal for them. In other people, blood pressure drops below normal because of a medical condition or certain medicines. Some people may have symptoms of low blood pressure when standing up too quickly. Low blood pressure is a problem only if it causes dizziness, fainting or in extreme cases, shock. High blood pressure usually has no symptoms, but it can cause serious problems such as stroke, heart failure, heart attack, and kidney failure. You can control high blood pressure through healthy lifestyle habits and taking medicines, if needed. Patients should be given the clear facts that medications do not have a significant impact on reducing heart attacks, the leading cause of death in people with high blood pressure. In fact, because of their negative effect on lipids and glucose levels, drug treatments such as beta-blockers and diuretics may even increase the risk of heart attacks in some individuals. Some of the side effects of high blood pressure medication are hard to ignore. They include fatigue, headache, swelling, nausea, dizziness and many others. For example, I routinely see patients complaining of sexual dysfunction who are anxious to get off their medication. The main message is that this Band-Aid approach to high blood pressure is inadequate. For individuals who want to truly protect themselves, they have to look for a comprehensive approach that removes the cause of atherosclerosis and high blood pressure, allowing the body to get well. In conclusion, the majority of patients with high blood pressure die of heart attack, not strokes. Medications, therefore, have been shown to have little or no effect in reducing overall cardiovascular mortality in major clinical trials. Even when researchers lumped together all of the major hypertensive trials to achieve the statistical power of very large numbers, no significant trend was noticed in the ability of high blood pressure medication to reduce the mortality or morbidity of coronary heart disease.

Reference:
1. "Low blood pressure (hypotension) — Causes". MayoClinic.com. Mayo Foundation for Medical Education and Research. 2009-05-23. Retrieved 2010-10-19.
2. Figueroa, JJ; Basford, JR; Low, PA (May 2010). "Preventing and treating orthostatic hypotension: As easy as A, B, C". Cleveland Clinic Journal of Medicine 77 (5): 256-327.