Get Fit

By Jeremiah Slivka

 What is blood pressure? Blood pressure is the force of your blood against the walls of your arteries. Blood pressure consists of two number; a top and bottom number. The top number is the systolic pressure. The bottom number is the diastolic pressure.

Systolic blood pressure is the force of blood in your arteries as your heart beats. If your systolic number is higher than one hundred and forty you have high blood pressure. Even if your diastolic number is not high you can still have ‘isolated systolic hypertension.’ This means only your systolic number is high.

This is more common for older Americans. This pressure usually increases with age whereas diastolic pressure decreases after fifty-five. You might not know if you have isolated systolic hypertension so ask your doctor if you are concerned.

Diastolic blood pressure is the force of blood in your arteries when your heart relaxes between beats. For younger people this is a very important number. The higher this pressure is the more you are at risk. This blood pressure lowers as you get older and your systolic increases. Therefore diastolic is more important in younger people and systolic in older.

Normal blood pressure is less than one hundred and twenty over less than eighty. If your pressure is between the normal numbers and one hundred and thirty-nine over eighty-nine, you have what is called prehypertension. This puts you at risk to develop high blood pressure in the future but it easily preventable.

Hypertension is a name for high blood pressure. Having high blood pressure puts you at risk for heart disease or even strokes. High blood pressure makes your heart work harder than it should and can lead to blindness, kidney disease and even congestive heart failure.

According to statistics high blood pressure killed over fifty-four thousand people in 2004. Statistics also show that twenty-eight percent of people have high blood pressure and aren’t even aware of it. Are you one of them?

You should be aware of the risks of high blood pressure so you can avoid them as best as you can. High blood pressure is a risk for stroke and heart disease. While some risks can be altered or fixed, some cannot. For instance if you use tobacco or are overweight you are at risk for high blood pressure.

You can easily fix this by trying to quit using tobacco and watching your diet to help lose weight. If you have trouble doing either of these on your own, consult your physician. They may be able to prescribe you something or give you useful information to help.

High blood pressure can affect certain parts of your body as well. You might suffer from a stroke. This happens because the high blood pressure can break a weak blood vessel leaving it to bleed into the brain. Also if you have a blood clot blocking a narrow artery, you can also experience a stroke.

Sometimes impaired vision or blindness can occur from high blood pressure. It might eventually cause your blood vessels in your eye to bleed or burst leaving you with blurred or impaired vision.

Your arteries harden as you age, even more so for those in your heart, brain and kidneys. These harder arteries are associated with high blood pressure. When this happens your kidneys and heart have to work harder. If you have any questions or concerns about your blood pressure ask your doctor. They can answer any questions you might have and find a solution if you do in fact have high blood pressure or might be prone to it. It’s never too late to take care of your body, including your blood pressure.

Find tips about what causes high blood pressure and foods that lower blood pressure at the Ideal Blood Pressure website.

Fitness

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By faye bautista

 Nowadays, a lot of people are getting so may different kinds of illnesses and chronic diseases. In fact even young people are now getting such diseases. A few years ago, such diseases among young children wasn’t even heard of. One of the few things people are doing to get healthy and fit is to proactive a healthy diet.

Eating a balanced amount of food from all food groups, together with exercise or regular physical activity such as sports, can decrease the chance of having health problems. Nutritionists say that although the basic principles of healthy diet is downright simple, there are still people having great difficulty in sticking to it.

The major reason people use as an excuse is mostly a busy lifestyle, a job that causes a lot of stress, or it might even be environment that is not conducive to having a healthy diet. People can start and maintain a healthy diet if they really want to. But I believe that if one really wants it, people can get into a healthy diet lifestyle.

As a starter, it is advised to mix up food choices from each food group. Consuming a significant variety of foods and veggies can also serve as a warm up in avoiding the foods that contribute to drastic weight gain.

To be able to maintain a healthy diet, you must be aware of your body restrictions from fats, salt and sugars levels. Your doctor should be able to perform tests which will tell you if you should limit any of these items.

Experts say that a diet is healthy if it is a balance of these items:

1. A diet which contains starchy foods such as bread, cereals, rice, pasta, and potatoes because they are a good source of energy not to mention being the main source of a range of nutrients of a personal diet like fiber, calcium, iron, and vitamin B; Just don’t overdo this.

2. A diet that has a lot of fruits and veggies such as orange, apples, broccoli, carrots, leafy veggies, beans and peas.

3. A diet with fish dishes that have high amounts of fish oil because it can provide protein, vitamins, and minerals that are not available to other food groups. This is one of the good sources of Omega 3. If you do not have fish in your diet, make sure you take omega 3 supplements. These are essential oils that our body needs.

4. A diet low on saturated fats and excess sugars such as meat pies, sausages, hard cheese, butter and lard, pastry, cake, biscuits, cream and the others. These items are the leading causes of obesity as these cannot be absorbed easily by the body and thus converted to fat most of the time.

5. A diet with low in salt content. Too much salt can raise the blood pressure which can lead to more complicated diseases. A diet high in water content. Our bodies are made up mostly of water. We can survive a few days without eating but we would be dead in about 3 days if we did not take in water.

The author is a freelance writer. She writes about health topics and recently wrote an article about what does acai berry look like?

Fitness

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