Knowing the facts: Hypertension vis-a-vis Lifestyle

High blood pressure, or hypertension, is commonly referred to as a ‘silent killer’. This is mainly because it rarely presents warning signs at its onset, considerably delaying diagnosis and treatment. Here, the basic assumption is that if you have hypertension, you would know it and recognise it, doesn’t hold true. The disease can silently damage your body for years before symptoms that substantiate diagnosis begin to appear. 

In fact, when symptoms do start to appear, like headaches, nosebleeds or blurred vision, it is highly likely that hypertension has reached to severe stage. What compounds this problem is the prevalence of common misconceptions and myths that need to be demystified in order to fully understand how serious the issue can be. This includes myths like being calm and not stressed can prevent hypertension, or hypertension only affects people above a certain age.

Bursting these myths is imperative when you consider that if left untreated, or uncontrolled in time, hypertension may cause disability, a substantial decrease in the quality of life, or even fatal issues like heart attacks and strokes. This is what makes awareness absolutely vital so that identification, prevention, treatment and management of the disease can begin well in time and helps in avoiding fatal situations like heart attacks or strokes

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Lifestyle: The Cause And The Most Effective Treatment For Hypertension 

Hypertension is more of a lifestyle disorder in contemporary times, than a disease. The effects and impact of hypertension however are well known. It is a dangerous disease, which can permanently damage eyes, lungs, heart, kidneys, and other organs.

Several lifestyle factors such as smoking, drinking, excessive stress, too much salt in diet, unhealthy diet, sedentary lifestyle, obesity, lack of exercise, irregular sleep and eating habits etc, play a major role in the prevalence of hypertension. While they aren’t exact causes of hypertension, they certainly do make things worse. They make an individual more susceptible to the ailment.

But the fact that lifestyle is one of the leading enablers of hypertension also means that lifestyle management can also help alleviate the impact of the disease. It is well known that, like all lifestyle disorders, hypertension too can be controlled, or even reversed, simply by maintaining a healthy lifestyle. A focused approach that involves making healthy choices, losing weight, checking salt intake, limiting alcohol consumption and smoking, can be an excellent way to treat hypertension; sometimes, even putting an end to the very requirement of medication.

Disclaimer: The views, suggestions and opinions expressed here are the sole responsibility of the experts. No Forbes India journalist was involved in the writing and production of this article