In France, 10 million people are treated for hypertension, and an estimated 4 million people have undiagnosed hypertension.
However, due to the lack of symptoms, this chronic disease progresses silently... until it's too late. Indeed, the health consequences are dramatic.
Typical of developed countries whose overall lifestyle encourages sedentary behavior and unbalanced diet, hypertension should be the subject of increased prevention and management long before the first signs appear.
What is hypertension?
When you visit the doctor, they often measure your blood pressure using a blood pressure cuff on your arm and give you a number, for example, 12/8 (or 120/80).
These numbers correspond to the systolic and diastolic pressures, which are measured in millimeters of mercury or mmHg.
The "12" corresponds to the systolic pressure, which is the blood pressure when the heart contracts and sends blood to the vessels. The "8" corresponds to the diastolic pressure, which is the pressure that continues to exert on the vessels between two contractions.
While blood pressure naturally fluctuates throughout the day (it fluctuates depending on fatigue and stress), hypertension is considered to be present when the blood pressure exceeds 14/9.
To better understand the havoc that high blood pressure can wreak, we can compare our arteries to garden hoses that, subjected to too much water pressure, risk swelling, cracking, bursting, or sending too powerful a jet onto delicate plants.
While our body's functioning is more subtle, this analogy helps to grasp that excessively high blood pressure can cause significant problems by weakening vessel walls, causing bulges and ruptures, or creating lesions in vulnerable organs.
Thus, hypertension is a risk factor for conditions such as:
- Heart and vascular disorders with terrible consequences such as angina pectoris, myocardial infarction, and stroke. Indeed, high blood pressure indicates that blood exerts too much pressure on artery walls, weakening them and increasing the risk of artery blockage due to atherosclerosis, thickening of the arteries due to deposits of fats and other organic residues (atheroma plaques) on their walls.
- Heart failure. High blood pressure puts extra strain on the heart. Extra strain on the heart logically leads to increased fatigue of the heart muscle. It is worth noting that heart failure is characterized by excessive fatigue and sometimes continuous shortness of breath, which can quickly become very disabling. It is also a risk factor for pulmonary embolism.
- Kidney problems (renal insufficiency) and eye problems (retinal lesions that can lead to loss of vision). This is also due to the weakening of blood vessels.
Hypertension kills and causes conditions with dramatic consequences. However, this silent killer often does not cause or causes few symptoms. Nevertheless, it can sometimes manifest as headaches, difficulty concentrating, dizziness, chest pain, shortness of breath, visual disturbances, or ringing in the ears.
These warning signs must imperatively prompt you to consult your doctor promptly.
Alternatively, annual check-ups are essential, especially if you have one or more risk factors:
- Heredity: one of your parents (or both) has hypertension.
- Age: you are over 50 years old.
- Overweight or obesity.
- Regular alcohol consumption.
- Smoking.
- Sedentary lifestyle.
- High salt intake.
- Regular use of anti-inflammatory drugs or bronchodilators.
- Substance abuse: cocaine or amphetamines, among others.
How to limit, control your blood pressure, and reduce risks?
While medication is sometimes necessary for severe hypertension, changes in your lifestyle will help prevent hypertension and prevent your blood pressure from soaring.
If you are at risk, it is just as crucial to eliminate factors that favor hypertension as it is to eliminate or reduce anything that could lead to complications.
Thus, reducing your alcohol consumption or quitting smoking will not drastically lower your blood pressure, but it will greatly reduce your risks of developing cardiovascular and renal pathologies.
However, it is important to understand that physical exercise, balanced nutrition, and quality sleep are the main pillars for controlling your blood pressure and limiting risks.
Above all, it is important to note that together, they will help you regulate your weight. This is a crucial element because it is known that high blood pressure in obese individuals can be cured by returning to a normal weight.
Now let's take a closer look at the changes to make in your daily life.
Maintain physical activity
Effective and without any side effects, physical exercise is one of the best defenses against hypertension.
If your hypertension is severe and your heart races at the slightest effort, seek guidance from a specialist (physiotherapist or rehabilitation professional, for example) to safely resume physical activity.
If you are sedentary, start slowly but steadily (15 minutes, then 30 minutes a day), adapting your activities to your tastes to avoid losing motivation: brisk walking, swimming, cycling, yoga...
While exercises that work the cardiovascular system are important, do not neglect muscle strengthening. Indeed, strength exercises not only lower blood pressure but also improve the resistance of your heart and limit the risks of atherosclerosis by protecting the cells lining your arteries.
Aim for 30 minutes of exercise 3 times a week, alternating between days of effort and rest.
Finally, seize every opportunity to be more active: garden, walk instead of taking your car or the bus for short distances, etc.
Monitor your diet
Diet is also a cornerstone of the fight against hypertension and its damage. It is not about adopting a drastic diet, but about changing your eating habits to provide your body with what it truly needs.
Limit your salt intake to 5-6 grams per day. This is quite simple by avoiding the consumption of cold cuts, smoked fish, cheeses, and highly salted ready-made dishes. Do not add salt to your dishes at the table. Use spices and condiments to flavor your meals. Since salt leads to water retention, if you consume a lot of it, your body accumulates more water, which is responsible for an increase in blood pressure.
Give pride of place to fruits and vegetables rich in fiber, which help lower cholesterol levels and have a protective effect on the cardiovascular system, particularly due to their high antioxidant content. As a guideline: the ideal is to reach 500 grams per day.
Also, consider whole grains and legumes, which are also rich in fiber and essential nutrients. In addition, their low glycemic index allows you to feel full for a long time and avoid snacking.
Adopt a diet rich in omega-3 (fatty fish and semi-fatty fish, nuts, rapeseed or flaxseed oils). Many studies have shown the ability of these essential fatty acids to reduce blood pressure and their protective effect on cardiovascular health. If your diet does not provide enough Omega-3 (for example, if you are vegetarian and/or allergic to nuts), do not hesitate to take supplements. At the same time, limit your consumption of Omega-6 (sunflower, corn oils...) and avoid saturated fats (butter, cream, cheeses, pork, beef, duck, goose fats, coconut oil, palm oil...) which "clog" your arteries. Use olive oil for cooking: while it does not provide Omega-3, it has the advantage of being "neutral" and not containing any Omega-6 or saturated fatty acids.
Consume at least one source of lean protein at each meal: legumes, fish, seafood, skinless poultry, lean meat cuts, tofu, yogurt, and 0% cottage cheese.
Include foods rich in potassium in your diet: seaweed, legumes, dried fruits and nuts, avocado, tomato puree, chard, kale, sweet potato, kiwi, or banana. Several studies have indeed described associations between a potassium-rich diet and a decrease in blood pressure as well as a decrease in cardiovascular events and even mortality.
Do not exceed 4 cups of coffee per day.
Treat yourself to 1-2 squares of dark chocolate (70% or more) per day: the polyphenols it contains have a vasodilator effect.
Avoid sugary drinks, which studies agree promote hypertension as well as licorice.
The ideal is to get as close as possible to a Mediterranean diet.
Prevent vitamin D deficiencies
The further you live from the equator, the greater your risk of vitamin D deficiency. This is especially true if you live in a region with low sunlight, if you go out little, and do not expose yourself to the sun. In France, 80% of people are deficient in vitamin D, so it is highly likely that you are one of them!
We know that vitamin D plays a role not only in regulating blood pressure but also that treating a vitamin D deficiency can have a positive impact on vessel elasticity and thus cardiovascular risk.
Therefore, it is interesting to supplement not only to lower your blood pressure but also to reduce the risks of myocardial infarction, stroke, angina pectoris, or heart failure.
Consider magnesium
Magnesium deficiency is also widespread and affects 90% of French people due to an inadequate diet rich in this essential mineral, but also because of stressful living conditions that tend to increase the deficit.
However, a cohort of studies has shown that correcting magnesium deficiency through appropriate supplementation reduces systolic blood pressure by 3 to 4 points and diastolic blood pressure by 2 to 3 points.
Thus, magnesium supplementation has a positive effect on managing hypertension.
In addition, magnesium has a proven protective effect on reducing arterial inflammation, which reduces the risk of atherosclerosis as well as more broadly on our cardiovascular health. Thus, both preventively for the risks associated with hypertension and curatively (in combination with adherence to hygienic and dietary rules), do not hesitate to supplement with magnesium.
Take care of your sleep
Are you sleeping well or are you among the 60% of people who say they are affected by insomnia at least occasionally?
Disturbed sleep and the resulting fatigue promote the production of stress hormones, salt retention, and weight gain, three risk factors for hypertension.
To prevent hypertension, but also to regulate your blood pressure, good sleep is essential. Aim for at least 7 hours of sleep per night and do not hesitate to take naps. To improve your sleep, both in terms of quantity and quality, magnesium and phytotherapy (hawthorn, passionflower, lemon balm, valerian) tailored to individual cases provide effective solutions. However, be careful with St. John's wort, which is contraindicated in case of hypertension medication due to interactions.
Silent but devastating, hypertension and its dramatic complications can be prevented simply by changes in habits resting on three essential pillars: nutrition, physical activity, and sleep.
Dietary supplements (omega-3, vitamin D, and magnesium) will help regulate blood pressure and contribute to reducing cardiovascular risks.