By Dr. Goke Akirogunde
Your Piece on Hypertension Refers:
Try constant lawn tennis session for one week. Get your BP checked again and you would see the difference.
I was on 220/120mmHg two years ago. I went to USA, it was discovered that my cholesterol was high and was placed on drugs.
However, since I started the lawn tennis, my high blood pressure had been an old story as it is now 110/90mmHg.
In fact, I have placed myself on drug holidays since 2011 and my blood pressure is still maintained within normal bracket.
Ndukwo
Dear Ndukwo,
I quite agree with you that regular exercising goes a long way with controlling high blood pressure as well as being a very good tool for our body’s general wellbeing.
As I had mentioned in the piece on hypertension under reference, many factors are potential causes of high blood pressure, especially the common variant called essential or primary hypertension. Essential HBP is the type of hypertension not related directly to other medical condition in the body; e.g. kidney conditions and adrenal gland diseases might lead to secondary hypertension.
One common reason why high blood pressure might arise is overweight or recently add-on weight; hence with routine exercising and physical sporting activities, a sustained reduction in body weight might be achieved as well as corresponding decrease in blood pressure.
It is a research fact that an increase in body weight by as little as 10kg can increase the blood pressure by more than 10mmHg; hence it needs not be stressed that corresponding decrease in body weight would lead to blood pressure reduction.
As an emphasis, in as much as I agree with you on the aforementioned, I however disagree that for all cases of hypertension, regular physical sporting activities would automatically replace other forms of therapy.
Hypertension control has its many technicalities; it is best to be under the guidance of a physician, who will not only monitor the blood pressure regularly, but also in the best position to tell when to reduce medication or in not very uncommon circumstances to stop medication wholesomely.
To do otherwise could result in worsened morbidity and avoidable fatality. This is my take on your experience and professional guide for all high blood pressure patients.
Best wishes.
