You might have this deadly disease — and not even know it

Salty meals can lead to high blood pressure, the cause of a wide variety of other health conditions.

Hypertension, also known as high blood pressure, is a silent killer that lurks among us, helping to claim millions of lives every year.

According to a new study published in The Lancet, the number of kids under age 19 who have high blood pressure has doubled worldwide since 2000. The rest of the population isn’t faring much better either: In the US, nearly half of Americans have hypertension — twice the rate from a generation ago.

Key takeaways

Many Americans, particularly young adults, don’t know they have high blood pressure.
If unchecked, high blood pressure can lead to a lot of health problems: heart disease, lung disease, kidney disease, and even dementia. It also raises your risk of a deadly heart attack or stroke.
Low-sodium, low-fat diets rich in fiber and potassium can lower your blood pressure, as can a dedicated aerobic workout routine. Wearables, like an Oura ring or Apple Watch, and GLP-1s offer new potential to control hypertension, but they are still in the early stages.

That might mean you, too. And I’m sorry, but the news gets worse: Thanksgiving is the disease’s favorite time of year. It seems our social calendar and our food supply are conspiring to give each of us this too-often-overlooked condition — with potentially deadly consequences.

Only about half of the people who have hypertension have it under control, a figure that has been declining over the past 10 years, even though this is among the most tractable public health problems that we have. With better monitoring, lifestyle modification, and medication, it is possible to reduce someone’s high blood pressure.

But the problem is, many of the people who have it, especially younger patients, are totally unaware.

Why hypertension is so dangerous

What is high blood pressure, exactly?

Your blood pressure measures how hard the blood pumping through your veins is pushing against the walls of your arteries, and it serves as a proxy for how hard your heart and circulatory system have to work to move blood through your body. If you’ve ever had a physical exam or a routine check-up with your doctor, you’ve probably had your measurement taken using either a manual or automatic cuff. The standard healthy reading is 120/80 (the top figure measures the pressure during a heartbeat, and the bottom measures the pressure during those brief moments in between heartbeats).

If both numbers fall below that standard, it is considered to be a healthy reading. Anything above that starts to have negative consequences. First, arteries begin to harden, and organs can be damaged over time.

But high blood pressure and its effects on your body’s function can lead to other issues as well. It can damage your kidneys; hypertension is one of the leading causes of chronic kidney failure. It can damage your eyes,........

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