Controlling high blood pressure to prevent strokes

  Stroke is a highly lethal and disabling disease. Risk factors for stroke include hypertension, smoking, diabetes, obesity, and atrial fibrillation, but the most important modifiable risk factor for stroke is hypertension. Many anti-hypertensive randomized clinical trials at home and abroad have confirmed that lowering blood pressure levels in patients with hypertension can significantly reduce the risk of stroke, and that early and sustained effective control of hypertension is the key to stroke prevention.   Most people with hypertension are asymptomatic in the early stages of hypertension, but some may experience more pronounced dizziness, headache, irritability and palpitations, insomnia and dreaminess, poor concentration, memory loss, and numbness in the limbs. In the later stages of hypertension, lesions of the heart, brain, kidneys, and blood vessels in the eyes may gradually appear. The goal of hypertension treatment is to improve the rate of control in order to reduce the occurrence of comorbidities such as strokes. It is equally important for patients to achieve systolic and diastolic blood pressure, and the focus is on achieving systolic blood pressure. Strokes can be significantly reduced when blood pressure levels are <140/90 mmHg. In hypertensive patients with diabetes and renal disease, the goal of lowering blood pressure should be even lower, with <130/80 mmHg.  In addition to reasonable and standardized long-term oral medication to control blood pressure, hypertensive patients should also follow a healthy lifestyle, including reducing sodium intake, controlling body weight, quitting smoking and limiting alcohol, appropriate physical activity, reducing mental stress, adjusting lipid metabolism, improving abnormal glucose metabolism, improving hyperuricemia, and other comprehensive interventions on risk factors for vascular lesions in hypertensive patients, specifically including the following: 1. The World Health Organization recommends that each person consume less than 2.4g of sodium per day, or less than 1.5g per day. about 80% of the sodium in our diet comes from cooking or high salt-containing preserved products, so salt restriction should first reduce the salt used in cooking and high salt-containing seasonings, and eat less of various salted vegetables and salt-cured foods.  2, pay attention to the supplementation of potassium and calcium potassium and blood pressure is significantly negative correlation. The Chinese diet is low in potassium and calcium, and should increase the food containing high potassium and calcium, such as green leafy vegetables, fresh milk, bean products, etc.  3, eat more vegetables and fruits Research has shown that increasing the intake of vegetables or fruits and reducing fat intake can lead to a decrease in blood pressure. Vegetarians have lower blood pressure than meat eaters, and the effect of lowering blood pressure may be based on the combined effect of fruits, vegetables, dietary fiber and low fat.  4, increase physical activity The middle-aged and elderly people who participate in sports and hypertension would do well to know their physical condition before exercising in order to decide on the type, intensity, frequency and duration of their exercise. Exercise for middle-aged and elderly people should include aerobic, stretching and muscle-strengthening exercises, and specific items can be chosen from walking, jogging, taijiquan, gateball, qigong and elderly disco. The frequency of exercise generally requires 3-5 times a week, and each time lasts 20-60 minutes.  5, reduce mental stress to maintain a balanced psychological long-term mental stress and depression is one of the important causes of hypertension and some other chronic diseases, people with mental stress, change their mental outlook need to do long-term meticulous work.  6, quit smoking It is also important for patients with hypertension to quit smoking, although nicotine only makes the blood pressure rise transiently, but it reduces the compliance of medication and will increase the dose of antihypertensive drugs.