Mild hyper-tension can be treated without drugs

For people with mild hyper-tension, encouraging lifestyle changes should be the first line of recommendations for physicians rather than putting them on drugs, suggest experts. Lead researcher Stephen Martin and colleagues argue that the current strategy is failing patients and wasting healthcare resources. ‘Over-emphasis on drug treatment risks adverse effects such as increased risk of falls and misses opportunities to modify individual lifestyle choices,’ they noted.

They called for a re-examination of the threshold and urge clinicians to be cautious about treating low risk patients with blood pressure lowering drugs. Up to 40 percent of adults worldwide have hyper-tension, over half of which is classified as mild. Low risk indicates that an individual does not have existing cardio-vascular diseases, diabetes or kidney diseases.

Over the years, hyper-tension has been treated with drugs at progressively lower blood pressures. ‘We urge clinicians to share the uncertainty surrounding drug treatment of mild hypertension with patients, measure blood pressure at home, improve accuracy of clinic measurements and encourage lifestyle changes,’ Martin concluded. They were scheduled to discuss the findings at the 2014 Preventing Overdiagnosis Conference hosted by the Centre for Evidence-based Medicine at the University of Oxford.

Here are ten ways high blood pressure affects your body.

Affects the blood vessels

In hypertension the wall of the blood vessels lose their elasticity and become firm or hard, a condition called arteriosclerosis. Because of the constant pressure the walls of the artery become weak and over time, may cause a part of it to bulge. This forms an aneurysm (distension or a pouch-like structure in the vessel wall) which can rupture and is invariably fatal.

Fails your heart

High blood pressure thickens and damages the lining of the blood vessels of the heart.The damaged blood vessels are prone to the formation of clots which can grow and block the blood supply to the heart. This can reduce the efficiency of the heart and also damage its tissues leading to angina (chest pain). Increased blood pressure also increases the workload of the heart.This causes thickening of its muscle wall especially the left ventricle (left ventricular hypertrophy)which in turn compromises the heart’s ability to pump enough blood to the different organs eventually leading to heart failure.

Read more about causes, symptoms, diagnosis and treatment of heart disease.

Affects the brain

Hypertension increases the risk of brain haemorrhage (stroke) by almost 10 times. According to a research, even if your blood pressure (BP) is slightly elevated, you may be prone to a stroke. In fact high BP is responsible for 80% of all heart attacks and stroke. Increased blood pressure weakens the small vessels in the brain causing them to rupture. Interruption of blood flow to the brain may also increase the risk of mild cognitive impairment and dementia. Read more about 10 ways hypertension or High BP affects your body

With inputs from IANS