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Overview
--The latest facts on how cholesterol, cigarette smoking, obesity, and stress affect coronary risk levels.
--Your high blood pressure risk profile, with newly devised charts for men and women.
--A complete fitness program that lets you choose the sport that works for you. Plus a unique illustrated guide to aqua-aerobics.
--Tips on talking to your doctor that will help you become an active participant in your own recovery.
--A guide to anti-hypertensive drugs--the most up-to-date list of medications, their recommended daily doses, and ways to minimize side effects.
--Three distinct dietary programs, complete with menus, recipes, nutritional charts, healthy cooking tips, and much more.
--Take charge of your health and well-being with Overcoming Hypertension.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9780307489272 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Random House Publishing Group |
| Publication date: | 02/01/2012 |
| Series: | Dr. Kenneth H. Cooper's Preventive Medicine Program |
| Sold by: | Random House |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 464 |
| File size: | 19 MB |
| Note: | This product may take a few minutes to download. |
About the Author
Read an Excerpt
Introduction
The underlying theory in the practice of preventive medicine might be stated this way: “It is always cheaper and more effective to maintain good health than to regain health once it is lost.”
There is no area of medicine in which this statement applies more than in the management and treatment of high blood pressure, which is also known as hypertension. Like so many other medical problems, the onset of this disease is insidious and usually has no obvious symptoms. The first sign of trouble may be an incapacitating, or fatal, heart attack or stroke. So it’s not surprising that many studies have shown the benefits of early diagnosis and treatment of hypertension.
Twenty years ago, medical reports revealed that only 15 percent of Americans with hypertension had their condition effectively diagnosed and controlled. By 1989, however, that figure was estimated to be above 50 percent.
As a practicing physician, I have in excess of fifty medications that I can prescribe to treat hypertension, but many of them have troublesome side effects. Unfortunately, even practicing physicians are not always knowledgeable about these side effects, nor are they aware of the best drugs with which to treat hypertension. So, in an effort to spread important information on this disease as widely as possible, I have written this book for both the layperson and the practicing physician. Medical references and other source citations can be found in the “References” section in the back of the book and also, in a number of cases, in the text. Shortened forms of references in the text are available with longer citations in Dr. Norman Kaplan’s Clinical Hypertension (Baltimore: Williams & Wilkins, fourth edition, 1986).
It’s quite easy simply to prescribe a drug that will control or mask hypertension. Unfortunately, that’s the approach taken by many physicians, with the result that almost invariably, the patient builds up tolerance to the medication. When this happens, either the dose must be increased, the medication changed, or a combination of medications prescribed. A vicious, seemingly endless cycle may then arise, shifting the patient from medication, to tolerance, to more medication.
Because of such dangers, I strongly emphasize in this book the nonpharmacological approach to treating hypertension, and only if that fails do I encourage the use of medications. The ultimate goal is to cure the problem, not to mask it.
During the past twenty years, considerable improvement has been noted in the incidence of cardiovascular disease, including a decline in heart attacks and strokes. That improvement has occurred not so much because of what modern medicine has done for us—nor even because of what the government has provided through Medicare and Medicaid. Rather, it’s a consequence of what we, as individuals, have done for ourselves.
This book is an extension of an educational, self-help process that started with Aerobics in 1968 and has gone through Controlling Cholesterol and Preventing Osteoporosis. Now, with this discussion of high blood pressure, we’re dealing with a subject that affects nearly 60 million Americans. I hope that Overcoming Hypertension will help you help yourself if you are among those 60 million people.
—Kenneth H. Cooper, M.D.
1
The Much Misunderstood
Challenge of Hypertension
Hypertension is an illness of civilization.
Personal and professional stress, poor diet, lack of exercise—these and related features of our so-called advanced societies contribute heavily to the problems of the nearly 60 million Americans who have some form of high blood pressure.
There’s a danger that as we progress toward the twenty-first century and life in our cities and suburbs becomes more pressure-ridden and unlivable, the number of those at risk for hypertension will rise. But I’m convinced that this danger can be confronted and conquered—if, through extensive public education, we can explain the paradoxes and perplexities of hypertension.
Hypertension is, indeed, a disease fraught with misunderstanding and confusion. For example, there’s the question of just how to evaluate the danger of high blood pressure. Without doubt, in many respects hypertension poses one of the most serious threats to our health. The disease is the major risk factor for all forms of stroke; furthermore, it can lead to kidney failure or other serious disorders.
Paradoxically, as dangerous as this disease is, one or even several high blood pressure readings are nothing to panic about. To be sure, hypertension is a silent killer, and the first major symptom may be death. But with an early diagnosis, you have time on your side because it typically takes ten to twenty years for hypertension to cause real damage to your health.
Furthermore, for most people with hypertension, the initial approach to treatment doesn’t have to turn one’s life upside down. The first line of attack usually consists of nondrug treatments rather than medication.
If you are among the 60 million Americans who now confront hypertension, here are some facts you should know:
• Your chances of controlling mild hypertension without drugs are very good.
• A single high reading in your doctor’s office is not conclusive evidence of the disease.
• Your blood pressure readings may vary considerably during any given day—and those ups and downs may be quite normal.
• It’s common for many people, with hypertension or without, to have two upward “bursts” of blood pressure in the morning—one immediately on awakening, and another on getting out of bed and walking about.
• Vigorous exertion (especially the type that tenses the muscles), the experience of stress or anxiety, the ingestion of caffeine, smoking, a full bladder, or simply eating immediately before a blood pressure reading is taken may lead to an invalid measurement.
• Excessive use of alcohol may lead to elevated blood pressure, but, paradoxically, moderate use has been linked to a lower incidence of coronary disease.
• Your average blood pressure (i.e., the average of multiple readings taken over one to two months, rather than one isolated reading) is the key to diagnosing hypertension.
• Many cases of hypertension have a genetic factor: In other words, there’s an inherited tendency toward high blood pressure in some people. However, your genes need not be decisive! Changes in lifestyle or the administration of appropriate medications can often offset the influence of heredity.
The main focus of this book is on managing hypertension without drugs. But there are many healthy people who exercise regularly and eat correctly, yet who can’t control their hypertension through a drug-free regimen.
We live in a high-pressure society that requires millions of those with hypertension to rely both on nondrug treatments and on medication. Furthermore, as the following story demonstrates, a patient can have a lot of input into the way his illness is treated.