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To control high blood pressure, it helps to understand:
- What can cause it
- What risk factors are linked to it
Causes
Experts don’t know the cause of high blood pressure in most people. For some people, it’s linked to another condition like:
- Short periods of not breathing during sleep (sleep apnea)
- Kidney disease
- Hormone disorder
- Very narrow arteries
Some medicines can raise blood pressure. These include:
- Some birth control pills
- Anti-inflammatory pain medicines
- Some medicines to relieve nasal stuffiness
Cocaine use can also lead to high blood pressure.
Risk factors
Risk factors are health conditions or ways of acting that can cause disease or make a disease that you have worse.
You can control some high blood pressure risk factors, in whole or in part. These include:
- Cigarette smoking
- Being overweight or obese
- Poor diet (eating too much salt, and/or too little fruits, vegetables, and potassium)
- Lack of exercise
- High cholesterol
- Alcohol abuse
- Drug abuse
- Diabetes
There may be risk factors that you can’t control. These can include:
- Age (older than age 55 for men and older than age 65 for women)
- Family history of early heart disease (having a mother or sister who has heart disease before age 65, or a father or brother with heart disease before age 55)
Don’t play the “blame game”
Some people feel guilty when they learn they have high blood pressure. They blame themselves for not being able to change their lifestyles.
High blood pressure tends to run in families. Your lifestyle may not be the only reason why you have high blood pressure.
You can still make a big difference in your health. How? By making good choices every day about how you live your life.
Also of Interest
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