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Do you experience hypertension or high blood pressure? The good news is that high blood pressure or hypertension is now being treated with a lot of different methods. One of the available treatment methods is with the use of blood pressure tablets.

Since hypertension may or may not show symptoms in a person who has it, hypertension is now considered as the “Silent Killer”. This is why undergoing an annual check-up to diagnose hypertension as early as possible is very important. The common symptoms of hypertension include shortness of breath, dizziness, blurred vision, and headaches. It is good if a person experiences these symptoms and is able to be diagnosed by a doctor early on. Unfortunately, hypertension symptoms are not seen in other people which leads to a late diagnosis of the disease. In fact, hypertension is only diagnosed in some people when they are already suffering from its complications like stroke, heart attack of kidney failure.

After a doctor's diagnosis of hypertension in a person, blood pressure tablets will be prescribed for treatment. The first-line of treatment for hypertension is with the use of diuretics. Diuretics are able to lower blood pressure by removing excess water and salt by urination. Diuretics have adverse effects which include extreme tiredness, abnormal heart rate, dizziness, blurred vision, muscle cramps, frequent urination, dehydration, fever, skin rash, and many more.

Another blood pressure tablets that are commonly prescribed are the angiotensin converting enzyme inhibitors. Angiotensin converting enzyme inhibitors, also called ACE inhibitors, lower the blood pressure through dilating the blood vessels. Once the blood vessels are dilated, the blood flow is increased and the heart works with less effort. With regards to side effects, ACE inhibitors can lead to diarrhea, swelling of face or neck, severe vomiting, kidney failure, skin rash, cough, sore throat, fever, salty or metallic taste, and others.

Another type of blood pressure tablets are angiotensin II receptor blockers or ARBs. Angiotensin II receptor blockers also increase blood flow through dilating the blood vessels. Through ARBs, the blood flow is increased since angiotensin II, which causes blood vessel narrowing, is blocked. The usual side effects of ARBs include muscle cramps, confusion, dizziness, cough, diarrhea, and a lot more.

Calcium channel blockers are another type of blood pressure tablets. Calcium channel blockers can block the entry of calcium into the cells of the heart and blood vessels which leads to dilation of blood vessels. The usual side effects of calcium channel blockers include skin rash, edema, nausea, headache, fatigue, constipation, dry mouth, diarrhea, and a lot more.

Another example of blood pressure tablets is beta-blockers. Beta-blockers can hinder the effects of adrenaline on the heart making it work with less oxygen and blood. With regards to side effects, beta-blockers can cause slow heartbeat, dizziness, depression, fatigue, edema, and others.

These blood pressure tablets are efficacious in managing hypertension. But as you can see, there are so many various side effects that come with each drug.

Was it just recently that your doctor diagnosed your high blood pressure? Managing hypertension or high blood pressure is very important since this condition can lead to heart attack and stroke. Here are different methods that can effectively reduce high blood pressure.

When a person is diagnosed with hypertension, doctors usually prescribe anti-hypertensive medicines in order to control blood pressure. Different types of anti-hypertensive drugs can be prescribed like angiotensin converting enzyme inhibitors, diuretics, beta-blockers, calcium channel blockers, angiotensin II receptor blockers and others. These drugs can definitely lower blood pressure but the usual complaints of patients are regarding the side effects.

Like any kind of synthetic drug, anti-hypertensive drugs do have side effects like diarrhea, dizziness, heartbeat changes, vomiting, and others. It is good if the side effects can be tolerated by the patient. Unfortunately for some, the side effects are intolerable that they look for other effective ways in reducing high blood pressure. What is great is the fact that certain approaches have been proven helpful in reducing high blood pressure and these methods have no side effects.

Decreased intake of salt. Remember that how much salt you consume per day can increase your risk of getting hypertension. For health reasons, people should limit their salt intake to 2,300 milligrams per day. And if a person is hypertensive, his or her sodium intake must be limited to 1,500 milligrams per day only. When you are going grocery shopping, always look at the nutritional facts and sodium content of products. The foods that you decide to purchase must only reflect 5% or less of the Daily Value of sodium. If the daily Value of sodium is 20% or more, do not purchase that food.

Increase consumption of vegetables and foods rich in magnesium, potassium, and fiber. It has been proven that these nutrients can help in lessening high blood pressure. Samples of fruits and vegetables that are rich in these nutrients are apples, apricots, bananas, broccoli, carrots, green beans, green peas, grapefruit, grapes, lima beans, mangoes, melons, oranges, pineapples, potatoes, raisins, squash, spinach, sweet potatoes, tomatoes, fat-free yogurt, and many more.

Completely stop smoking. Smoking is another proven risk factor of high blood pressure. The nicotine in cigarette smoke can cause decreased oxygen to the heart, increased blood pressure, increased heart rate, increased blood clotting, and damage to cells of the blood vessels.

Get your body moving. A sedentary lifestyle is one of the risk factors in getting high blood pressure. Exercising every day for at least 30 minutes can decrease a person's risk of developing high blood pressure as well as effectively control hypertension. You can do jogging, brisk walking, biking, walking, swimming, and other aerobic exercises.

These are just some proven effective methods to reduce high blood pressure. In fact, so many more methods can effectively reduce a person's high blood pressure and examples of these are deep breathing, supplementation, meditation, yoga, and stress reduction. If you definitely want to control your high blood pressure without suffering the side effects brought about by anti-hypertensive medications, you need to know and apply the different natural methods in order to reduce high blood pressure.

A recent Finnish study that was put together to study the link between coffee and high blood pressure. Unfortunately, even though the study revealed a lot of information, it was imperfect in that it failed to account for and isolate other variables that have been proven to affect blood pressure.

An interesting example is the demographic are people who drink coffee. Coffee drinkers, as a rule, tend to also be cigarette smokers. It's been well proven that smoking tends to harden the blood arteries and constrict blood flow. The heart has to pump harder to force the blood through the narrow arteries and blood pressure rises as a result. In addition, studies have also demonstrated that discontinuing tobacco smoking will likely lead to a decrease in blood pressure. The study did not control for smoking.

Other lifestyle factors, that were not controlled for, come into the mix as well. Factors such as eating habits, whether the person is male or female, weight, exercise, and salt sensitivity and intake. Diet, as we know, has a great impact on whether a person develops hypertension. Is a person who drinks coffee more likely to also have bad eating habits which can lead to high blood pressure?

Exercise is very beneficial to the heart and arterial system. Is a coffee drinker more likely to be sedentary than a non coffee drinker?

For more than a few decades, it seems like we're constantly being told that some food or other that we have become used to eating is somehow harmful to us. First we were told to eat fish, only later to be told that if we eat fish we risk ingesting too much mercury. A vegetarian diet is good for health, but are we willing to risk bone loss? Fruits have loads of healthy antioxidants, but will the sugar content in them rot our teeth?

However, hidden within the study was one excellent piece of health news. It appears as if drinking coffee actually lowers the risk of developing type 2 diabetes. And, at this point, we'll take all the good news that we can.

Melissa Chow is a freelance writer who writes articles for her website on topics such as ways on how to lower high blood pressure, herbs for high blood pressure, and well known natural cures for high blood pressure. Please visit her site for more details.

A recent Finnish study followed over 24,000 citizens with no prior history of hypertension or high blood pressure for thirteen years to attempt to find a causal link between high blood pressure and coffee. The ages of the participants were between 25 and 64 years old. Also required was that they had no history of hypertension drug use and no history of stroke or heart disease.

Unfortunately, the answers from the study were inconclusive leaving it an open question as to how much coffee drinking affects hypertension.

Over the period during which the study took place, more than 2500 subjects, or about ten percent of them started to take some type of anti hypertension drug. Prior studies had already demonstrated that approximately 19% of non-coffee drinkers developed high blood pressure during the time period of the study. What is unknown, however, is how many of the participants developed high blood pressure but were either unaware of it or not taking medication for it.

Part of the questionnaire that participants were asked to complete focused on how many cups of coffee they drink daily. The more cups of coffee a participant drank, the greater the chances are that he or she would end up in the group taking anti hypertension drugs. So although there does seem to be some slight causation link between coffee drinking and high blood pressure, the risk seems to be small, and many questions still remain.

As an example of how some of these questions remain unanswered is that, as a general observation, coffee drinkers tend to drink alcohol more than non coffee drinkers. Although a drink once in a while may be beneficial for relieving stress and may even reduce diastolic blood pressure, studies have consistently shown that alcohol when consumed in excess increases blood pressure. We also know that over time, excess drinking can damage the heart. But, the study did not control for alcohol consumption.

Unfortunately, until better control studies come along, we are left in the dark. However, those of us who really love coffee, can now enjoy our daily caffeine fix without guilt pangs.

Melissa Chow is a freelance writer who writes articles for her website on topics such as ways on how to lower high blood pressure, herbs for high blood pressure, and well known natural cures for high blood pressure. Please visit her site for more details.