High Blood Pressure (Hypertension) Overview

High blood pressure (hypertension) is a common condition in which the long-term force of the blood against your artery walls is high enough that it may eventually cause health problems, such as heart disease. High blood pressure, or hypertension, rarely has noticeable symptoms. But if untreated, it increases the risk of serious problems such as heart attacks and stroke.

Blood pressure is recorded with 2 numbers. The systolic pressure (higher number) is the force at which your heart pumps blood around your body. The diastolic pressure (lower number) is the resistance to the blood flow in the blood vessels. They’re both measured in millimeters of mercury (mmHg).

As a general guide:

  • High blood pressure is considered to be 140/90mmHg or higher (or 150/90mmHg or higher if you’re over the age of 80)
  • Ideal blood pressure is usually considered to be between 90/60mmHg and 120/80mmHg

Blood pressure readings between 120/80mmHg and 140/90mmHg could mean you’re at risk of developing high blood pressure if you do not take steps to keep your blood pressure under control.

Everyone’s blood pressure will be slightly different. What’s considered low or high for you may be normal for someone else.

Blood pressure is determined both by the amount of blood your heart pumps and the amount of resistance to blood flow in your arteries. The more blood your heart pumps and the narrower your arteries, the higher your blood pressure. You can have high blood pressure for years without any symptoms. Uncontrolled high blood pressure increases your risk of serious health problems, including heart attack and stroke. Fortunately, high blood pressure can be easily detected.

The best way to know if your blood pressure is high is through regular checkups. You can also monitor blood pressure at home. This is especially important if you have a close relative who has high blood pressure.

Signs and Symptoms of High Blood Pressure (Hypertension)

Most patients with high blood pressure (hypertension) have no signs or symptoms, even if blood pressure readings reach dangerously high levels. Some patients with high blood pressure may have headaches, shortness of breath or nosebleeds, but these signs and symptoms are not specific and usually don’t occur until high blood pressure has reached a severe or life-threatening stage.

Following are some of the signs and symptoms of high blood pressure:

Hypertension patients may also sometimes feel the following other symptoms related to high blood pressure:

  • Dizziness
  • Nervousness
  • Sweating
  • Trouble sleeping
  • Facial flushing
  • Blood spots in eyes

Types of High Blood Pressure (Hypertension)

Following are the two types of high blood pressure:

Primary (essential) Hypertension

For most adult patients, there’s no identifiable cause of high blood pressure. This type of high blood pressure, called primary (essential) hypertension, tends to develop gradually over many years.

Secondary Hypertension

Some patients have high blood pressure caused by an underlying condition. This type of high blood pressure, called secondary hypertension, tends to appear suddenly and cause higher blood pressure than does primary hypertension. Following are some of the various conditions and medications can lead to secondary hypertension:

  • Adrenal gland tumors
  • Birth defects you’re born with (congenital) in blood vessels
  • Obstructive sleep apnea
  • Illegal drugs, such as cocaine and amphetamines
  • Kidney disease
  • Medications, such as birth control pills, cold remedies, decongestants, over-the-counter pain
    relievers and some prescription drugs
  • Thyroid problems

Causes of High Blood Pressure (Hypertension)

Researchers are still unclear what mechanisms cause blood pressure to slowly increase. A combination of factors may play a role. These factors include:

  • Genes: Some people are genetically predisposed to hypertension. This may be from gene mutations or genetic abnormalities inherited from your parents.
  • Physical changes: If something in your body changes, you may begin experiencing issues throughout your body. High blood pressure may be one of those issues. For example, it’s thought that changes in your kidney function due to aging may upset the body’s natural balance of salts and fluid. This change may cause your body’s blood pressure to increase.
  • Environment: Over time, unhealthy lifestyle choices like lack of physical activity and poor diet can take their toll on your body. Lifestyle choices can lead to weight problems. Being overweight or obese can increase your risk for hypertension.

Biospecimens

biospecimens

Bay Biosciences is a global leader in providing researchers with high quality, clinical grade, fully characterized human tissue samples, bio-specimens, and human bio-fluid collections.

Moreover, human biospecimens are available including tumor tissue, serum, plasma and PBMC samples from most other therapeutic areas.

Furthermore, Bay Biosciences maintains and manages its own biorepository, the human tissue bank (biobank) consisting of thousands of diseased samples (specimens) and likewise normal healthy donors for controls. Additionally, available in all formats and types.

In fact, our biobank procures and stores fully consented, de-identified and institutional review boards (IRB) approved human tissue samples, human biofluids such as serum samples, plasma samples from various diseases and matched controls.

Also, all our human tissue collections, human biospecimens and human biofluids are provided with detailed, samples associated patient’s clinical data.

In fact, this critical patient’s clinical data includes information relating to their past and current disease, treatment history, lifestyle choices, biomarkers, and genetic information.

Additionally, researchers find the patient’s data associated with the human biospecimens extremely valuable and use it to help identify new effective treatments (drug discovery & development) in oncology, as well as in other therapeutic areas and diseases.

Bay Biosciences banks wide variety of human tissue samples and human biological samples, including fresh frozen human biospecimens cryogenically preserved at – 80°C.

For example fresh frozen tissue samples, tumor tissue samples, formalin-fixed paraffin-embedded (FFPE), tissue slides, with matching human bio-fluids, whole blood and blood-derived products such as human serum, human plasma and human PBMCs.

Bay Biosciences is a global leader in collecting and providing human tissue samples according to the specified requirements and customized, tailor-made collection protocols.

Please contact us anytime to discuss your special research projects and customized human tissue sample requirements.

Types of Biospecimens

Bay Biosciences provides human tissue samples (human specimens) and human biofluids from diseased and normal healthy donors which includes:

Moreover, we can also procure most human biospecimens and human biofluids, special collections and requests for human samples that are difficult to find. All our human tissue samples and human biofluids are procured through IRB-approved clinical protocols and procedures.

In addition to the standard processing protocols, Bay Biosciences can also provide human biofluids such as  human plasma, human serum, and human PBMCs bio-fluid samples using custom processing protocols; you buy donor-specific collections in higher volumes and specified sample aliquots from us.

Bay Biosciences also provides human biospecimens from normal healthy donors; volunteers, for controls and clinical research, Contact us Now.