Essay On High Blood Pressure

In today’s society, 1 in every 3 adults is diagnosed with high blood pressure and it has become one of the leading causes in death. With little to no symptoms, high blood pressure can go unnoticed until heart or kidney failures start to occur. The issue with diagnosing and treating high blood pressure is that it varies from person to person based on genetic make-ups including their age, sex, race, weight, and more. There is a movement toward personalized medicine for high blood pressure and some progress has been made, however there is still not enough research done to fully understand the best approaches that should be made for certain individuals. Some research has found specific locations on chromosomes that have to do with high blood pressure …show more content…
There are two forms of measurement including systolic and diastolic. The systolic blood pressure relies upon the contraction of the heart muscle and the diastolic blood pressure depends on if the heart muscle is in a more relaxed state between the contractions. A good pulse is from 100-140 mmHg systolic and 60-90 mmHg diastolic. If a person has a blood pressure greater than 140/90, then they are considered to have hypertension. Many people with high blood pressure may not even experience any symptoms but sometimes they may have headaches and shortness of breath once they have reached a life-threatening …show more content…
In our society, as years progress, there has been evidence to show an increase in the number of heart and kidney failures occurring spread across the nation. The two main factors that lead to kidney failures are diabetes and hypertension. There is a larger need to control hypertension now more than ever, because not only are people living longer and are much larger in size, there is a big problem with obesity as well. About thirty percent of U.S. adults aged ≥18 years in 2003−2010 were said to have hypertension (VTAT). Among those with hypertension, about 53.5% did not have their hypertension controlled, 39.4% were not aware of their hypertension, 15.8% were aware of their hypertension but were not receiving pharmacologic treatment, and 44.8% were aware of their hypertension and were being treated with medication (VTAT). These numbers are much too high, and this is why we are seeing an increase in our heart and kidney failures. The issue with determining the prognosis is that for some people there may be organ damage even when blood pressure is not extremely high and some people won’t have organ damage despite how high their blood pressure actually is. When observing high blood pressure and the outcomes from having hypertension, it varies from person to person and can be difficult to diagnose from an overall perspective based on results from the population. The