Hypertension is different from high blood pressure. ＂Silent killer＂ can’t rely on feelings.

Do you know what is the most common chronic disease in China? Is it hypertension, diabetes or heart disease? The answer is hypertension! Among all chronic diseases, the total number of patients with hypertension is 270 million, ranking first. This means that one out of every four adults has hypertension.

So, it’s just that my blood pressure is a little high and I don’t have any discomfort. Do I need to take medicine? Is it necessary to take medicine for life after taking it?

There is a difference between hypertension and high blood pressure.

What we usually call "hypertension" is called primary hypertension in medicine, especially hypertension with unknown causes. When blood pressure is high, many problems should be considered. For example, this is a manifestation of other diseases, that is, secondary hypertension, and it is necessary to treat the disease itself that causes high blood pressure, rather than simply lowering blood pressure. Common diseases that cause secondary hypertension include: sleep apnea syndrome, adrenal diseases, endocrine diseases, connective tissue diseases, cardiovascular diseases and so on.

Among them, the first two are the most common, and only after the investigation is completed one by one, can it be diagnosed as essential hypertension, that is, essential hypertension. It is worth noting that if the blood pressure of hypertensive patients who have been ill for many years suddenly drops to the normal range, or even lower, and factors such as taking antihypertensive drugs and primary diseases are excluded, it is likely that viral myocarditis caused by myocardial infarction, heart failure and viral infection will occur.

Can hypertension be inherited?

Hypertension does have a genetic tendency, but it does not mean that it will be inherited. Under the same circumstances, if parents have high blood pressure, their children may be more likely to get sick than normal people. The etiology of hypertension is related to many factors, such as heredity, age, overweight, obesity, high salt intake, smoking, excessive drinking, insufficient exercise, long-term mental stress, air pollution and so on. The more and more serious risk factors an individual has, the greater the risk of illness.

Except for a few cases where blood pressure is extremely high or sharply increased, most patients with hypertension have no feeling. Therefore, hypertension is also called "silent killer". Damage caused by hypertension is blood vessel damage. In layman’s terms, blood vessels, like ordinary water pipes, have long-term high pressure acting on the pipeline, which may shorten their life span or "burst". Because blood vessels are distributed all over the body, the complications of hypertension may also be systemic. The most common is that the coronary artery of the heart is damaged, resulting in angina pectoris and myocardial infarction of coronary heart disease; Cerebral vascular damage, resulting in cerebral infarction or cerebral hemorrhage; Renal blood vessels are damaged, resulting in renal insufficiency. In addition, the damage of fundus blood vessels will cause retinal hemorrhage and even blindness. Therefore, hypertension can’t rely on "feeling", otherwise there may be serious consequences.

Once you take the medicine, do you need to take it for life?

After being diagnosed with hypertension, patients should first find out whether they have an improper lifestyle, such as high-salt diet, lack of exercise, obesity, overweight and mental stress. If so, try to correct these bad factors first. Mild hypertension, by correcting these factors, blood pressure can gradually return to normal. Moderate and severe hypertension, on the basis of these, consider taking antihypertensive drugs in a standardized way. Some patients are reluctant to take medicine, fearing that "if they eat it, they will take medicine for life". But this is not "dependence" caused by taking medicine. There are also many people who worry that drugs will have side effects. At present, there are dozens of commonly used antihypertensive drugs. Choosing the right drugs under the guidance of doctors can completely avoid side effects. Therefore, scientific medical treatment, rational drug use and improvement of unhealthy lifestyle are the most correct ways to "lower blood pressure". Yu Shuhua