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High Blood Pressure and How It Affects Family Members

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High Blood Pressure and How It Affects Family Members
High Blood Pressure and How it affects Family Members

INTRODUCTION
High Blood Pressure occurs when there is high pressure in the arteries and the blood vessels are narrow or stiff, which makes the heart pumps harder to get blood through the rest of the body. High Blood Pressure is a health issue that many people today are forced to live with. It is a condition that is increasing more and more each day. There is approximately about 1 in every 3 adults in the United States, which has been estimated to be around 73 million people. Among American teens and children there is about two million who are affected by high blood pressure. High Blood Pressure (HBP) brings on other health conditions such as tumors, diabetes and kidney hypertension. That along shows it is a major public health condition, that has been researched and have had many drugs made to keep it under control along with exercise and diet.
When a family member is diagnosed with High Blood Pressure (HBP) it affects everyone in the family in one way or another. Speaking on a personal level, I have with a few members of my family that has high blood pressure. For instance, both of my grandmothers, mother, father, aunt and uncle all have high blood pressure. The effect of having this number of people in one family means that there is a high risk that I will eventually be diagnosed with high blood pressure. It is more likely because it comes from both sides of the family. In studies, it shows that the gene factor plays a prominent role in the development of essential hypertension. Although, it is said, that if high blood pressure runs in the family’s medical history, you are prone to be diagnosed with this medical condition. Medically these certain genes have not yet been identified as to, which ones are the cause of passing on high blood pressure to other family members. About 30 percent of the cases found are attributable to genetic factors.
When living with people that have high blood



References: (n.d.). Retrieved from www.medicinenet.com. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://kidney.org/atoz/content/hbpfamily.cfm.

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