Hypertension is a illness which exists when your blood vessels narrow. This narrowing usually leads to your systolic pressure reading 120 to 139 millimeters of mercury (mm Hg) or a bottom number on a blood pressure machine read reading from 80 to 89 mm Hg.
There are many medications available for people with Hypertension. They are commonly called antihypertensives. A doctor may prescribe one or more antihypertensives depending on how high or low the BP is. One of the first medication a doctor may prescribe is Thiazide diuretics. This type is said to have fewer side effects than the other types of diuretics.
In some cases a diuretic might be the only medication you might need but in some situations the doctor might see the need to add another medication. Some of the medication that can be taken along with diuretics are: Angiotensin - converting enzyme (ACE) inhibitors. They help to relax blood vessels by blocking the creation of a hormone that causes blood vessels to narrow. Some commonly prescribed ACE inhibitors are captopril (Capoten), Lisinopril (Prinvil, Zestril), and ramipril ( Altace).
Angiotensin II receptor blockers assist in the widening of the blood vessels by preventing a hormone called angiotensin from affecting vessels. Commonlyprescribed angiotensins include losartan (Cozaar), oimesartan (Benicar) and vaisartan (Diovan).
Beta Blockers have the can reduce nerve signals to the heart and blood vessels thus lowering the BP. Some common Beta blockers are metoprolol (Lopressor, Toprol XL), nadolol (Corgard) and penbutolol (Levatol).
Calcium Channel Blockers prevent calcium from entering into heart and blood vessel muscle cells, thus causing the cells to relax and then lowering the BP. frequently prescribed Calcium Channel Blockers includeamlodipine (Norvasc), diltiazem, (Cardizem, Dilacor, XR), and nifedipine (Adalat, Procardia).
Doctors advise patients with hypertension to change their life style. These changes include no smoking for smokers, eating a lot of fruits and vegetables, reducing the amount of food with calcium that you eat and exercising for at least 30 minutes per day.
Hypertension --also known as the "silent killer"--affects more than 60 million Americans. BP measuring devises are the only means through which hypertension can be detected. In the course of his pioneering work on blood circulation in the 1600s, William Harvey (1578-1657) noted that blood pulsated out of a severed artery as if it were underrhythmic pressure.
Nearly a century later, Stephen Hales (1677-1761), an English clergyman and physiologist, devised a technique to measure the pressure exerted on the vessels as blood was pumped through them. Hales inserted a brass pipe into an animal's blood vessel and used the windpipe of a goose (for its flexibility) to connect the pipe to a long glass tube. The height to whichthe animal's blood spurted up into the tube gave a measure of the force propelling the blood.
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