What Causes High Blood Pressure?

High blood pressure is disease that people get over time. While in rare cases, people that have heart defects can also have high blood pressure, most of the causes are related to the foods we eat and lack of exercise. Being overweight or obese can also cause this disease. In most cases this disease is preventable.

Foods That Cause High Blood Pressure

The food we eat from the time we are young can influence whether or not we will end up with high blood pressure. Consuming foods that are high in Trans fats, saturated fats, sodium, and cholesterol can all lead to high blood pressure. These foods include anything that is deep fried, such as chicken, cheese sticks, fish, French fries and onion rings.

Foods that are made of heavy cream bases, such as salad dressings and cream soups can be high in fats, sodium and cholesterol. Fast foods such as pizza, hamburgers, cheeseburgers and the like are also causes of this disease when consumed on a regular, long term basis.

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How Does High Blood Pressure Develop in the Body?

As we consume the foods mentioned above, our bodies digest and break these foods down. The bad cholesterol in these foods moves through the blood stream and causes fatty deposits on the vein and artery walls to start to develop.

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Overtime these fatty deposits continue to grow and cause the blood passages to narrow and become constricted. As a result of the constriction, the heart has to beat faster and harder in order to pump blood throughout the body and this causes the blood pressure to increase.

Sodium can cause high blood pressure when consumed in excessive amounts for an extended period of time. Some sodium is needed in the body for it to function properly. But what happens in cases where excess sodium is consumed, is excess water is retained in the body, as well as causing cells to swell in size.

This swelling of cells can place pressure on the blood passages causing them to become narrow and the heart to beat faster. When the heart is beating faster our blood pressure increases.