Silent Killer – Understanding Why Hypertension is called the Silent Killer Disease
by admin on 18/12/09 at 2:08 pm
High blood pressure is widely known as the ?silent killer?. Statistics have it that out of the fifty million Americans afflicted with hypertension or high blood pressure, only an estimated of thirty million had proper diagnosis.
In fact, most of those who were diagnosed did not visit their doctors to find cure or treatment for high blood pressure, but merely to acquire medical certification for a clean bill of health for insurance or employment purposes.
In some other cases, they may have submitted themselves to treat the symptoms of other disorders like heart attack, kidney failure, or other problems related to high blood pressure.
Essential Hypertension and Secondary hypertension
High blood pressure can be an offshoot of another major problem. If the proper treatment methods of the main disease had been observed, blood pressure could have been prevented as a resulting complication. Based on statistics, less than 10% of diagnosed high blood pressure stem from another disorder and this is known as secondary hypertension.
On the other hand, the common form of hypertension we usually encounter is called essential hypertension. It is often the result of several factors such as heredity, lack of exercises, stress, excessive weight, or poor diet.
Except for heredity, the other causes are diet related wherein the excessive intakes of salt resulting to imbalance between sodium and potassium is the most common contributing factor.
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