How much do you know about high blood pressure?

Gail Larkin/Emergency By Gail Larkin/Emergency Staten Island Advance
on June 21, 2010 at 5:03 AM, updated June 21, 2010 at 5:21 AM

STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. - EMTs and paramedics are never surprised when they find hypertension (high blood pressure) while acquiring a patient’s medical history.

For Americans, hypertension is one of the main causes of heart attack and stroke, the first and third leading causes of death , respectively, in both men and women. It is not necessarily a condition that comes on suddenly in middle age. In fact, nearly 10 percent of males between the ages of 20 and 34 are hypertensive.

By age 55, roughly half of all men and women are diagnosed with hypertension. Those numbers climb even further after age 65, with 65 percent of men and nearly 80 percent of women suffering from high blood pressure.

How can you tell if you have high blood pressure and what can be done to control it? Take this true-or-false quiz and test your hypertension IQ.

1. People with high blood pressure are usually very nervous or hyperactive.

2. If you have high blood pressure, you will experience warning signs, such as headaches or nosebleeds.

3. Heart disease and stroke are the main health problems caused by high blood pressure.

4. High blood pressure is curable.

5. High blood pressure can be prevented by proper diet and exercise.

6. High blood pressure strikes all adults equally.

7. High blood pressure can occur suddenly and create a life-threatening emergency.

1. False. Although ‘type A’ personality behavior may cause blood pressure to increase, many people with high blood pressure are calm and appear healthy.

2. False. If your blood pressure is causing headaches and nose bleeds, it’s usually moved beyond the high stage and into the dangerous and possibly life-threatening very high range (see question No. 7).

3. False. There are also other major medical problems including kidney failure and eye damage. Kidney failure occurs secondary to damage to the blood vessels that supply the kidneys with oxygenated blood.

There are many Staten Islanders, some quite young, who go to kidney dialysis several times a week because they have end-stage renal (kidney) disease because of uncontrolled hypertension. As a result of the kidney failure, they often have a multitude of other very serious and debilitating illnesses.

4. False. For most of us, high blood pressure is not curable. It may be largely controllable — and this is what we can hope for in terms of eliminating or minimizing the risk to other organs, allowing us to enjoy a long, healthy life.

5. False. While proper diet and exercise are very important to controlling blood pressure, some athletic individuals have high blood pressure that requires them to take daily medication for the rest of their lives.

6. False. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), high blood pressure strikes about 31 percent of white males, 42 percent of African-American males and only 24 percent of Mexican-American males. Regardless of your genetic background though, high blood pressure is equally devastating for all of us and is a silent killer, detectable only by actually measuring it on a regular basis.

7. True. According to the CDC, blood pressure numbers greater than 180 for the top and 110 for the bottom numbers (180/110) present a risk for immediate stroke or heart attack. If you measure your blood pressure and it’s this high, check it again in a few minutes to confirm. If it remains high, call 911 and go to the nearest hospital.

We all need a certain amount of pressure to pump our blood effectively to all our cells, but when the pressure gets too high, damage to overstretched blood vessels can cause numerous medical conditions that can be deadly.

As our heart pumps, the blood pushing through our circulatory system exerts pressure against the artery walls — that pressure can be measured as a number — specifically, it’s the top number of your blood pressure.

Once the heart relaxes, pressure still remains against the artery wall. That bottom number shows the pressure of the blood flow while your heart is at rest.

When these pressures stay too high, the vessels overstretch and can become scarred or tear. Blood clots, plaque and cholesterol can build up, clog or break off and create true medical emergencies.

Have your blood pressure checked several times a year by a professional. Take all hypertension medicine as prescribed.