Diabetics and High Blood Pressure
As a diabetic, you have to watch out for high blood pressure.
Diabetes and hypertension (high blood pressure) can be said to be interlinked. They happen together so often that both are regarded as ‘comorbidities’ officially. The word refers to sicknesses that are most likely to be seen together in a sick person. It is so much tougher to treat hypertension when diabetes is present and hypertension causes diabetes to become much more life-threatening.
Where is the connection between diabetes and hypertension?
Diabetes and hypertension(high blood pressure) are inclined to happen together due to the fact that they have the same physiological traits. It means that the effects brought about by one disease can cause the occurrence of another disease. When it comes to diabetes and hypertension, the effects are:
- Impaired Insulin Handling : The changes in how insulin is produced and managed by the body can result in higher blood pressure.
- Increased Arterial Stiffness : With diabetes, blood vessels harden and there is need for more pressure to send the blood through, resulting in higher blood pressure.
- Increased Fluid Volume : Diabetes raises the volume of fluid inside your body and this causes blood pressure to go up.
Even though the above traits partly help us to understand the reason diabetes and hypertension often occur together, there is still another reason for their tendency to happen together and it is having the same causative factors such as:
- Activity level : Without sufficient activity to make insulin effective can lead to diabetes and can cause the hardening of blood vessels which can probably result in hypertension.
- Diet : It is a known fact that a diet with lots of fat, salt, refined sugar and processed carbohydrates can be a factor in organ disorders which can result in diabetes and hypertension.
- Body mass : The possibility of suffering from both diseases is greater when the body is overweight.(see BMI)
The above same factors are attended to as strategies for the prevention of the two diseases, hypertension and diabetes.
Hypertension and Diabetes – Video Guide
Let us study data from a large, acknowledged study on the occurrence frequency of high blood pressure in diabetics. The study showed that:
- 5 percent of diabetics have hypertension within a period of 10 years.
- 33 percent of diabetics have hypertension within a period of 20 years.
- 70 percent of diabetics have hypertension by the age of 40.
From data collect from studies on type 2 diabetics, it was found that 75 percent of the diabetics with kidney disease, which is a known complication, had hypertension. Among the type 2 diabetics without kidney diseases, only 40 percent had high blood pressure. On the average, with both diabetic types and without taking age into account, approximately 35 percent diabetics had hypertension.