Hypertension-High Blood Pressure “Silent But Deadly”

As I take a retrospective look at my life growing up in Harlem, there are an abundance of positive childhood memories that surface. One memory that stands out is my mother’s cooking. As I reminisce, I can vividly see, smell, and taste what my mother was cooking by standing outside of our apartment door. I could smell from the outside door and tell you to the “T” what my mother was preparing for us on any given evening. The memories of this time past put a huge smile on my face however; the sad reality is it comes with a bitter sweet reminder. The way in which we prepared food was a recipe for destruction, and a daily reminder because of our necessity to have it. As in most African American homes in the 80’s, everything was fried. I retain memories of fried chicken, fried fish, fried pork chops, fried bacon, fried egg, fried, fried and more fried. Now in defense of my parents (especially my mother who was a home- maker), they were only doing what they knew best; and they provided for me and my 10 siblings and anyone else in the community that would stop in to eat. Now that’s a tall order!

Unfortunately, we now know that our diet plays such a great impact on our over-all health. Fried foods with high sodium content are primary contributors to high blood pressure or hypertension. African American men develop high blood pressure at a younger age and a higher rate than any other groups in the United States. This is alarming and grim to say the least because hypertension is linked to so many diseases that increase the morbidity and mortality rate for African American men. Problematic health conditions like stoke, kidney disease (failure), blindness, dementia and heart disease can directly result from hypertension.

Hypertension in African American men is considered the silent killer because by the time you are diagnosed, the disease has already caused systemic damage to other organs in your body. However, there is light at the end of the tunnel. The proverbial light is simply in the method that we screen for hypertension. Traditional doctors screen for hypertension by measuring bronchial blood pressure that can appear normal. Bronchial blood pressure is measure at the point of your arms or extremities. However, recent preliminary studies conducted with groups of young African American men indicate early detection of hypertension can be determined by measuring aortic blood pressure or central blood pressure. Studies reveal higher pressure and vascular stiffness is found in aortic blood vessels in African American men while normal conditions appear at the bronchial vascular region. This all means that African American men can have high blood pressure and don’t know it because of the method in which they are being screened. Therefore, African American men MUST speak to their physician about the level of their central blood pressure.

Lastly, what are some of the risk factors in developing hypertension?

● Diet

● Excessive weight gain

● Family history

● Lack of physical activity

Now the next steps are to get tested, monitor your sodium (salt) intake, eliminate fried foods and put that remote down and exercise.

Peace and Blessings