Why is High Blood Pressure So Dangerous?

High blood pressure tends to be dangerous because of the way blood is supposed to flow through your vascular system. In a healthy artery, blood flows in a streamline fashion, meaning it flows without interruption. In an artery that has been affected by high blood pressure, the flow of blood through the artery becomes turbulant.

Now, to understand the difference between streamline and turbulence, one just has to understand how water comes out of a hose on a nice hot summer day. We have all been there as kids playing with the hose with no spray nozzle on it. If the water is coming out of the end of the hose in a streamline fashion, we can take a drink out of it because it just flows so nice and gently out of the end. But, when your friend comes walking by you put your thumb over the end of the hose and it sprays harder and in all kinds of directions…this is essentially turbulence…the loss of a smooth and uninterrupted flow.

Now, imagine your heart. In a good healthy heart of a fit individual, the stroke volume is large and the pulse is slow…possibly in the 50’s and even lower in elite athletes…40’s. Normal pulse rate is 72 beats per minute in the average adult. Having a slower pulse rate and a larger stroke volume is easier on the heart. In an unhealthy individual, the pulse rate tends to go above 72 and their stroke volume is decreased.

To understand how the heart beats we have to think of pumping and relaxing. Pumping is considered systole, and resting is considered diastole. How much our heart gets to rest and the subsequent volume it pumps out is our stroke volume. It is very important that our heart gets adequate time to rest and fill. After the heart pumps, blood enters into the left ventricle to be pumped again. The more blood allowed to go into the ventricle to be pumped out to the body, the larger the stroke volume.

We can’t talk about blood pressure without including the arteries. Believe it or not, but arteries are muscles. They are constructed of what is called smooth muscle. The interesting fact about arteries is that they do contract. Why you ask? Arteries use a series of contractions to propel the blood to where it needs to go. Now, you can imagine what happens if your arteries are “out of shape” due to lack of exercise or calcium deposits. The arteries don’t push the blood as long as good as they used to so your blood pressure has to go up! This puts more stress on your heart, and more stress on your arteries.

The problem with turbulence in an artery is that it breaks down the inner layer of the artery overtime. The artery is composed of three layers, the inner layer, the middle layer, and the outside layer. When blood pressure increases, it damages the inner layer of the artery because of the turbulent nature of the blood flow. We can liken this to a water pipe in a home. When calcium builds up on the inside of the pipe, water passes over this bumpy area and becomes turbulent instead of streamline. Eventually, the water will make a hole in the copper pipe and the pipe will start to leak!

Now, your artery is just about the same. When the blood pressure increases, the blood in the artery starts to bounce off of the walls and break the inner layer down. When it damages the inner layer of the artery enough, it eventually creates a “hole” in the inner layer. When this hole appears, the body reacts by either patching it with LDL cholesterol or HDL cholesterol depending on how high or low your good and bad cholesterol levels are. The problem with LDL making a plaster over the hole is that it is easily oxidized. When the fatty cholesterol plaque closes off the hole, the plaque will oxidize and turn into what is called a foam cell. The problem with oxidation is that the foam cell begins to grow. When it grows, it starts to narrow the lumen of the artery because it cannot expand the middle layer due the muscle being to strong. So, it has no where to go but to bulge inwards!

Here in lies the problem. We already have turbulent blood flow and now we have a bump in the middle of the road! The problem with turbulence and with the bump is that platelets in our blood stream bounce off each other and activate an enzyme system called complement. When this happens, platelets become “sticky.” Sticky platelets create a problem downstream from the bump in the form of a thrombus. Eventually the thrombus grows and either breaks free or completely closes off the artery resulting in tissue death!

Tissue death will occur in the area where the blood can’t get to because your blood carries oxygen in the form of red blood cells. If the red blood cells cannot provide oxygen we end up with an infarction. If it happens in your brain, it is called a stroke, if it happens in your heart it is called a heart attack.

The really cool thing about all of this is that your body is constantly in a state of adapting. Your heart will actually show signs or arteriogenesis when it is under this state of tissue oxygen lack. Tissue oxygen lack in patients with heart trouble is known as angina. If the heart is stressed and starving for oxygen, it will actually create a new artery to supply blood to that area! Pretty cool, huh? It is the bodies very own version of “bypass surgery.” Here in lies the problem though, some people will not do anything about their diet or their exercise after they feel any kind of chest discomfort or the doctor tells them they have to start changing their ways. Essentially, you cause problems so fast your body is not able to adapt and start the arteriogenesis process.

Your best bet to break free from high blood pressure and its sequelae of tissue oxygen lack to a vital organ is to start eating right and exercising. Really, it is simple when you think about it. Stay away from all the processed sugars, and grains and eat from the “garden of life” again. Like I say, if it wasn’t here 200 years ago…don’t eat it!

Trust me, there is no miracle exercise plan. Do whatever you want to do to increase your heart rate higher than getting up from the couch to go to the fridgerator. Thirty minutes per day is sufficient exercise. Do you get it? Just do something, anything to get your heart rate up. Even if you want to start jogging, it does not mean you have to jog for one half hour straight. You jog 3 minutes and rest 3 minutes up until 30 minutes. This is perfect for you to start off with! IT IS OK! Trust me, your heart rate will stay elevated during those three minutes of rest if you are not used to exercising. Then, it is simple when you get more in shape, you just manipulate the numbers…run 2 minutes, rest 2 minutes…run 1 minute, rest one minute…run 2 minutes, rest one minute…run 3 minutes rest one minute…run 5 minutes, rest one minute…and so on…you get it! Exercise is not a one month thing, two month thing, or three month thing…it is a lifestyle…FOR LIFE…so you have to have fun with this and mix it up. It is not about killing yourself with the latest exercise technique!!!

Put all of this together, exercise, diet, and stress control methods and your blood pressure will drop dramatically. It will drop so much in fact that you have to watch out for you blood pressure going too low if you are on blood pressure medication. If you plan to start an exercise regimen, make sure you tell your doctor. He will want to monitor your strength of your medication because if your blood pressure drops too low you will fell dizziness, possible tunnel vision, fainting, fatigue…etc.

The best thing about all of this is that your heart will get stronger, your arteries will heal, and your strength of contractions in your arteries will become greater to push the blood along! This will result in lower blood pressure because your muscles are stronger…your heart and the smooth muscles in your arteries. Do you get it? The older we get the less pumping contraction our heart and arteries have which does result in lowered blood pressure. Also, you will increase your HDL, or good cholesterol levels, which will help to take the sludge out of your blood stream resulting in lower blood pressure. On top of that, your muscles will once again become more sensitive to insulin! That is awesome because you won’t have as much sugar storing as fat or floating in the artery itself. When you think about it, your artery is simply a pipe. If you fill it up with a bunch of cholesterol and sugar, it is a thicker substance, which means it needs more of a force to pump it along! So, medical doctors use a blood thinner to help in this situation because it thins the blood! What a concept! It decreases the solutes in the blood stream essentially lowering blood pressure by requiring less force to move the fluid through the artery!

The best thing you can do today to prevent these adverse reactions is to make sure first of all that your blood pressure is right for your size. You see, not all of us should be 120 over 80. Some of us are a little bit older so there is an adjustment for age. Also, if you have a really small frame, your blood pressure tends to run a bit lower. So, check with your doctor and if it is looking like it is high, you need to start your life change that day! High blood pressure is the silent killer, so chances are you have been having high blood pressure for some period of time that has already caused damage that you may not even know about. This is why high blood pressure is so scary.

We need to start taking control of our health and take responsibility for our bodies. Trust me, if we take away your high blood pressure medicine and you are not eating right or exercising, you will still have high blood pressure! So, my question to you is this…DID THE HIGH BLOOD PRESSURE MEDICINE DO ANYTHING TO IMPROVE YOUR HEALTH? It did not reverse a condition, it just silenced it. Don’t be fooled by this and give into temptation. Medicine is there to buy you time…maybe three months to give your body a bit of help to get started on an exercise program without further damage occurring. This is the ONLY and I repeat ONLY thing high blood pressure meds can do…buy you time!

Time and time again we have worked with people with high blood pressure and high cholesterol levels in our clinic. It really is simple, take the sugars out and trust me, one month your blood pressure will drop massively! Stay on the plan long enough and you can actually reverse heart disease! Now, doesn’t this sound better than taking some sort of pill? And for all of you men out there, uncontrolled high blood pressure is the leading cause of impotence! That should be enough to get your butt off of the couch and get out there.

Spring is a time for new beginnings. Get out into the sun and nature and start exercising. Take it one day at a time, have fun with it, and most importantly remember this is for life…not just a fad your going to start and do for a few months. As soon as you form a habit and get passed your head…our biggest obstacle…you will have the health you have always wanted and always deserved!

Your health and wellness advocate,

Dr. James R. Haakenson