In recent years alterations to the lifestyle and diet in many western societies have caused a growth in the number of people suffering from high blood pressure.

High blood pressure (otherwise called hypertension, or more accurately arterial hypertension) is a dangerous condition which rarely carries any symptoms and which, if left undetected and untreated, can lead to stroke, heart attack, heart failure, arterial aneurysm or renal failure - any one of which is a life-threatening condition.

So exactly what is hypertension and precisely what causes it?

The arteries within your body are continuously filled with blood that exerts a normal 'background' pressure on the walls of the arteries. As the heart pumps freshly oxygenated blood around your body it pushes this blood into the arteries which briefly raises the pressure exerted on the walls of the arteries with each beat of the heart. These two pressures are referred to as the systolic pressure (the higher pressure as the heart pumps) and the diastolic pressure (the reduced 'background' pressure).

Normal blood pressure differs from one person to the next but, on average, systolic pressure should be approximately 120 mm Hg and diastolic pressure should be around 80 mm Hg. This is usually shown as a blood pressure of 120/80.

When your blood pressure starts to rise and stays above 120/80 then you are said to be 'prehypertensive' and, while this is not in itself serious, it is a sign that you could be at risk of developing hypertension and all of the problems associated with it. As soon as your blood pressure reaches, and maintains, a level of 140/90 or higher then you are said to be suffering from hypertension and steps ought to be taken to lower your blood pressure.

But what makes you blood pressure rise and stay at a high level?

Well, there are a variety of factors involved here and the first is a group over which you have little, or no, control. This group includes a low weight at birth, a variety of genetic factors, some forms of diabetes (in particular type 2 diabetes) and your age (as we grow older the arteries have a tendency to become fibrous and lose their elasticity, creating a reduced cross-sectional area through which the blood can flow).

The second group of factors is much more within your control and includes a sedentary lifestyle, large levels of salt and saturated fats in your diet, being overweight, smoking tobacco, excessive alcohol consumption, stress and employment in specific occupations such as motorway maintenance or flying.

Most of these factors are treatable and, in many cases, a simple adjustment to your diet and the addition of a little exercise into your daily plan is all that is necessary to resolve the problem. However, the difficulty is that, with few, or no, symptoms, most people are not aware that they have hypertension in the first place.

So how do you solve the problem?

Thankfully the answer to this question is very simple. All you have to do is to drop by your physician's office on a regular basis (for most of us a couple of times a year will be sufficient) and ask him/her to check your blood pressure. The whole process is pain free, easy and quick and will provide you with peace of mind and can save your doctor a lot of time, work and expense down the road when you are forced to present yourself at his office once high blood pressure rears its ugly head.

If you are not so keen on visiting your doctor then a very good alternative nowadays is to simply monitor your own blood pressure at home. A wide range of easy to operate and quite inexpensive blood pressure monitors are now available, allowing you to check your health, as well as that of your whole family, in the privacy and comfort of your own home.