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A real guy is not afraid of anything… And he should! This is because an increasing number of men suffer from arterial hypertension. Although this disease is usually asymptomatic, if left undetected and untreated, it can be painful for the heart and brain. How to prevent this from happening? Keep your finger on the pulse – check yourself regularly, take care of yourself and follow your doctor’s instructions.
Men at risk of hypertension
Hypertension was already a serious health problem in ancient Egypt, as evidenced by the results of research conducted on Egyptian mummies. Though thousands of years have passed since then, and medicine has developed tremendously, the scale of this problem is not diminishing, but is still growing. Hypertension affects every third adult Pole, i.e. 10,5 million people. – NATPOL 2011 research has shown that in our country 35% of men and 29% of women suffer from hypertension. Detecting and controlling the treatment of this disease is significantly more difficult in men than in women. In addition, sex hormones have a positive effect on women in the reproductive period. Therefore, the increase in the risk of cardiovascular diseases in women is delayed by about 10 years – says cardiologist Bogumiła Pałubicka-Elmasri.
From correct pressure to hypertension
We need adequate blood pressure to live like air. Thanks to it, the blood is moved and provides every cell of our body with nutrients and oxygen. The pressure with the highest value is recorded in the left ventricle and large arteries that depart from it. When the heart muscle contracts, it normally amounts to about 120 mmHg (millimeters of mercury). All this so that the vessels can absorb a large amount of blood from the heart. Conversely, the diastolic blood pressure is much lower. When the heart fills with returning blood, the valves are closed and no blood drains to the arteries. However, the pressure in the arteries never drops to zero, and when the heart relaxes, it reaches a value of about 80 mmHg.
According to the World Health Organization (WHO), the optimal blood pressure that ensures blood supply to all tissues and does not damage organs is 120/80 mmHg. The pressure may rise temporarily – for example, during increased physical exertion, under stress, after drinking coffee, and even when pressure is measured by medical personnel (the so-called white coat hypertension). However, after such a momentary jump, it returns to normal. If this does not happen and its value is constantly above 140/90 mmHg, we are already talking about arterial hypertension. Over 90% of patients are patients with the so-called primary (essential) hypertension, which is influenced by many factors, but above all, we have been working on them for years.
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Hypertension – causes and symptoms
According to the WHO, a person with first degree hypertension, which ranges from 140/90 to 159/99 mmHg, may not feel any symptoms yet. Occasionally there is heart palpitations, tinnitus, dizziness, increased nervous excitability or sleep problems. – However, gentlemen less often than ladies know these symptoms with hypertension and most often ignore them. As a result, in about 40% of men, arterial hypertension remains undetected and untreated (among women it is about 25%) – the doctor concludes. Additionally, our daily lifestyle largely contributes to the development of this disease.
The factors of increased risk of hypertension include excess blood cholesterol, overweight and abdominal obesity, lack of regular physical activity, stress, heavy smoking, increased alcohol consumption and excess salt in the diet. Family burdens should also be added to this list, as approximately 65% of people with hypertension have family members with this disease. It is a genetic factor independent of us, as opposed to the aforementioned dependent factors which we have influence on.
Therefore, each of us, reaching for a cigarette, should be aware that after smoking it, the pressure will increase and will drop only after 2-3 hours. If we smoke much more often, the blood pressure will not decrease until the night. And one day it will not return to normal and will go into hypertension. If the body is affected by several negative factors at the same time, the likelihood of developing high blood pressure is even greater.
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The effects of the disease and its serious consequences
Since blood pressure is the force that flowing blood exerts against the walls of arteries, hypertension must increase this force. Why? Well, in hypertension, the constant contraction of the muscle fibers in the arteries keeps them constricted and creates more blood resistance. Therefore, the heart contracts more and the pressure rises so that the blood can pass through the arteries to all of the body’s tissues. On the other hand, the arteries that are exposed to greater pressure from the blood stream become stiff, which means that their elasticity decreases. And so the circle is closed, and what is worse, it leads to dangerous processes.
Diseased arteries in hypertension are more prone to the development of atherosclerosis – the deposition of cholesterol on their walls and the formation of blood clots leading to the narrowing of the lumen of the artery, and in extreme cases to its closure. As a consequence, blood with invaluable oxygen has an obstructed flow to the heart or brain.
This may result in:
- coronary artery disease (i.e. reduced blood supply to the heart caused by narrowing of the surrounding coronary vessels),
- heart attack (i.e. necrosis of the heart muscle tissue due to its hypoxia),
- stroke (i.e. cerebral ischemia)
- Chronic kidney disease (e.g., impaired renal filtration function due to sclerotization of kidney tubules).
– Gentlemen should be especially careful, because atherosclerosis develops more often and faster in them than in women. Their symptoms appear on average 10 years earlier, which is related to the differences in the hormonal balance between the sexes. Equally moving are reports that twice as many people die from cardiovascular diseases than from cancer – warns the cardiologist.
How to detect hypertension and fight it?
Hypertension does not manifest itself with any pronounced symptoms. Hence, only regular health checks (measuring blood pressure at least once a year) give a chance to detect this disease in a timely manner.
In the case of diagnosing arterial hypertension, the treatment of the patient is twofold. On the one hand, it is necessary lifestyle change – getting more exercise, reducing salt and saturated animal fat, quitting smoking, controlling weight and reducing stress. On the other hand, you should turn on appropriately tailored to the patient pharmacological treatment. – Currently, we have 5 groups of drugs at our disposal, of which calcium antagonists are the drugs with the highest metabolic neutrality. They are especially effective in patients with isolated systolic hypertension, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), bronchial asthma and in elderly patients, the doctor says.
The latest generation of drugs based on lercanidipine bring very good results of therapy. It is an active substance that “fights” hypertension at its source. Muscle contractility is regulated by calcium ions, which enter cells through calcium channels located in cell membranes. Lercanidipine, as an antagonist of calcium channels, reduces their ability to open, which limits the influx of calcium ions to the cells, reduces excessive muscle contractility and, consequently, causes drop in blood pressure. At the same time, lercanidipine is very well tolerated by patients and does not cause headaches, ankle swelling or hot flushes, which is often observed after administration of other preparations for hypertension and often causes withdrawal from therapy. The advantage of this substance is the ability to safely use it in combination with other drugs – e.g. beta-adrenergic agents, diuretics and ACE inhibitors.
However, only a physician can decide on the choice and dosage of medications for treatment to be effective. Although men like to be masters of the situation, in this case they have to trust a specialist. Self-modification of the doctor’s recommendations may lead to dysregulation of the heart rate and dangerous changes in pressure. The role of the men is to mobilize themselves to fight the disease, and therefore to undertake appropriate prevention and modification of the lifestyle. And there is something to fight for – because your life is at stake.
Substantive consultations: cardiologist Bogumiła Pałubicka-Elmasri, Unikardia Heart and Vascular Treatment Center, Krakow.