Precisely How Big A Problem Is Secondary Hypertension? Article

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Precisely How Big A Problem Is Secondary Hypertension?

Most people are familiar with hypertension but were you aware that there are two different forms of hypertension with very different causes?

Author: Donald Saunders

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Hypertension is the most diagnosed condition in the USA today and it is now estimated that it affects almost 72,000,000 US citizens, which includes one out of every three adults. However, while we talk about hypertension, did you know that there are actually two different forms of hypertension?

Most suffer from what is termed primary or essential hypertension which usually has few, or no, symptoms and often develops slowly over many years. A much smaller, but nonetheless very significant, number of people suffer from secondary hypertension which arises out of an underlying medical condition and may occasionally arise with a very rapid onset.

There are various different medical conditions which can give rise to secondary hypertension but listed below are some of the more commonly found causes:

Sleep Apnea. The continual interruption to your breathing caused by sleep apnea leads to oxygen deprivation which causes damage to the lining of the blood vessels and affects the elasticity needed in these vessels to control blood pressure.

Thyroid Problems. Excessive or inadequate hormone production from the thyroid gland, experienced in conditions like hyperthyroidism and hypothyroidism, can, directly or indirectly, produce a rise in blood pressure.

Obesity. Gaining weight is frequently accompanied by a rise in heart rate, as the heart is put under pressure to push an increasing amount of blood around the body, and a consequently raised pressure on the walls of the arteries.

Dietary Supplements. Numerou readily available dietary supplements, like St John's wort and ginseng, can produce hypertension.

Kidney Problems. Your kidneys contain millions of tiny blood vessels and other structures which are designed to filter waste products out of the blood. When this filtering process is interrupted, in the case of polycystic kidney disease or hydronephrosis, one of the results is secondary hypertension.

Naturally this list is not exhaustive and might also have included such things as prescription and over-the-counter drugs, diabetes, preeclampsia, Cushing's syndrome and much more.

Hypertension, whether it is primary or secondary, is a serious medical problem which can lead to the development of other life-threatening conditions like cardiovascular disease, heart disease and kidney failure.

About Author

TheBloodPressureCenter.com provides information on a variety of topics including the cause of high blood pressure, the importance of blood pressure monitoring and finding the best Omron blood pressure monitor.

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