How can hypertension be prevented?

Maintaining a healthy weight is crucial to prevent hypertension. Overweight individuals must shed the extra kilos while individuals of normal weight must work towards retaining the same weight in order to prevent high blood pressure.

Maintaining a balanced diet that includes plenty of vegetables and fruits rich in potassium will help keep hypertension in check. Take keen interest in limiting the intake of excessive fat, sugar and calories.

Ingesting a low sodium diet has been found to keep the levels of blood pressure normal, thereby keeping preventing hypertension. Avoid intake of processed and high-sodium packaged foods. The best way to prevent hypertension is to stay away from saltshakers.

Best way to prevent hypertension is to constantly be active. The more exercise one gets, the better is their control on blood pressure. Even 30 minutes of exercise or a short walk three times a week is a commendable start.

Limit alcohol consumption to one drink a day. Drinking alcohol in irresponsible levels can lead to high levels of hypertension. Ensure your blood pressure is monitored regularly either at home or at your doctor’s. Hypertension can occur without any symptoms. Conquering this health issue with small but steady lifestyle changes is helpful.

What is the best medicine to take for hypertension?

A large number of high blood pressure medications (antihypertensive) are available, each with benefits and drawbacks. Your doctor may prescribe a lot more than one good blood pressure medication to treat your condition.

If you have high blood pressure or are at risk of growing it, then changes in lifestyle may help in keeping your numbers in check. However, you will require drugs, as well. Having a successful drug regimen, taking drugs as prescribed, tracking your blood pressure along with making lifestyle changes can assist you in keeping your blood pressure in check.

Medication

·         Diuretics (water pills)

Your physician may first indicate diuretics that remove excess sodium and water in your body. That reduces the quantity of fluid flowing through your bloodstream, which reduces pressure on your vessel walls.

There are three types of diuretics: thiazide, loop and also potassium-sparing. The Joint National Committee on Prevention, Detection, Evaluation, and Treatment of High Blood Pressure recommends that most people today take to thiazide diuretics first to treat hypertension and cardiovascular issues related to elevated blood pressure.

In case diuretics are not sufficient to lower your blood pressure, your doctor might recommend adding other blood pressure medications into your treatment.

·         Angiotensin-converting enzyme (ACE) inhibitors

This help relaxes blood vessels by preventing the formation of a hormone known as angiotensin, a chemical in the human system which narrows arteries. Usually prescribed ACE inhibitors include enalapril (Vasotec), lisinopril (Prinivil, Zestril) and ramipril (Altace). This help relaxes blood vessels by blocking the action, maybe not the creation, of angiotensin, a chemical in the human body that narrows arteries. ARBs contain valsartan (Diovan), losartan (Cozaar) and also others.

·         Calcium channel blockers

These medications prevent calcium from entering the heart and blood vessel muscle tissues, hence inducing the tissues to curl up. Usually prescribed calcium channel blockers include amlodipine (Norvasc), diltiazem (Cardizem, Tiazac, others) and nifedipine (Adalat CC, Afeditab CR, Procardia).

·         Beta-blockers

Also called beta-adrenergic blocking representatives, these work by blocking the results of the hormone epinephrine, also known as adrenaline. They cause your heart to beat faster and with less force.

Often prescribed beta blockers include metoprolol (Lopressor, Toprol XL), nadolol (Corgard) and atenolol (Tenormin).

·         Renin inhibitors

Renin is an enzyme created by your kidneys that starts a string of chemical measures that increase blood pressure. Aliskiren (Tekturna) reduces the creation of renin, reducing its capacity to begin this procedure.

What is hypertension?

High Blood pressure (hypertension) is one of the most common and dangerous health issue may put your valuable life in danger. As you are getting older hypertension may leads to damage your blood vessels may cause serious diseases like heart stroke, heart disease, kidney failure and many more. High Blood pressure also be known as silent killer because symptoms of blood pressure are invisible so its best advice is to check your blood pressure regular before it causing damage to your valuable life.

To understand the term hypertension we first need to know what is blood pressure? The pressure that the blood exerts on the walls of the vessels is called Blood Pressure. Blood pressure is the combined effect of the elasticity of walls of the vessels and the power of the pumping of the heart. Normal range of blood pressure is 120 over 80 (mmHg).

Hypertension is a condition in which the heart pressure both systolic and diastolic i.e. contracting and resting blood pressure is raised. It can be divided into 3 categories depending upon the pressure. The normal b.p is 120/80 mm Hg for a normal individual.

What is the scope of paediatric cardiology?

Pediatric cardiology is a highly specialized sub-specialty of pediatrics. 

Certain facts about pediatric cardiology.

1.    Unlike adults, heart disease in children are extremely rare.

2.    Almost all the heart diseases in children are congenital, unlike in adults where most of the heart diseases are acquired.

3.    Structural heart disease are common in children whereas adults tend to have problems in the cardiac vessels.

4.    Pediatric cardiology requires state of the art facilities including cath lab and ICU. Well trained staff including nurses and technicians are required to take care of children with heart disease, most of whom are sick. Basically you need to work in a large corporate hospital or tertiary government hospital. It is difficult to practice from a room or a small clinic.
5. In India many parents are scared of treating their children with heart disease and neglect their care.
6. You will have to have good hand and eye skills as you will need to do cauterisation and ECHO in small children.

It is a challenging and busy specialty but very fulfilling because most congenital heart diseases can be permanently cured.

What is Cardiology ?

Cardiology is a branch of internal medicine that concerned with disorders of the heart. It deals with the diagnosis and treatment of such conditions as congenital heart defects, coronary artery disease, electrophysiology, heart failure, and valvular heart disease.

Some other subspecialties of the Cardiology field include:

1. Cardiac Electrophysiology

2. Echocardiography

3. Interventional Cardiology

4. Nuclear Cardiology

What are some signs of overdoing cardio?

It’s easy to overdo exercise, especially running, because once you get used to the sense of movement, it becomes harder to stop than keep going.

So here are a few symptoms of over exercising, and a few recovery techniques you can use if you’ve already overdone it.

1.      Your muscles are shaking and weak - if you feel uneasy walking, standing or sitting, you’ve overdone it.

2.      Your mouth is dry and you urinate often - if your body is purposefully dehydrating itself, you’ve overdone it.

3.      Your mind is foggy and you feel confusion - if you’re unable to think rationally 30–60 min after exercising, you’ve overdone it.

4.      Your heart rate doesn’t slow down - if you can feel heavy heart beats and your blood pressure is high, you’ve overdone it.

5.      Your forehead and temples ache - if you’ve got migraines, especially concentrated at the front, you’ve overdone it.

6.      Your body feels achy as if catching a fever - if your immune system feels weakened, you’ve overdone it.

Now here are a few ways to get back from Body stress Land:

1.      Hydrate - drink some liquids to replenish what’s lost. Drink a glass every 30 min. Keep on until your mouth stops feeling dry.

2.      Get some glucose, protein and fats - next, you need some nutrients to replace the lost ones. Glucose quickly recovers lost muscle & liver energy deposits. Essential amino acids (esp. BCAAs) help muscle recovery. Healthy fats help prolong energy release, so you don’t get energy drops, and are also good for brain function. Eggs & Avo toast can hit all 3.

3.      Take some magnesium, potassium, zinc, sodium & chloride - all these are used for nerve signals and muscle contraction. They also escape through sweat, so your stores are likely depleted. At this time a supplement is better than food, as it can help you restore them much more quickly.

4.      finally, don’t forget to stretch and relax - your body is strained and it needs some recovery time. There’s no need for a nap (unless you really feel like it), but you can sit quietly and do some mindful stretching or follow a few breaths. This will calm your nervous system down, and will turn down the entire fight-or-flight cascade going on.

What is the difference between dilated cardiomyopathy and HCM?

Cardiomyopathy is described as a group of diseases that affect the heart muscle. This condition occurs when heart fails to contract properly & the oxygenated blood is not pumped efficiently to the organs of the body which leads to weakness, fatigue, shortness of breath or chest pain. Cardiomyopathy is categorized as hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, dilated Cardiomyopathy, takotsubo Cardiomyopathy & restrictive Cardiomyopathy.

In dilated Cardiomyopathy the ventricles enlarges & weakens, in restrictive Cardiomyopathy the ventricles stiffens, in hypertrophic Cardiomyopathy heart muscles enlarges or thickens.

By:Cathy Smith, The United Kingdom