What is High Blood Pressure?

Your blood pressure is a measure of the pressure in your arteries as your heart pumps blood around your body. It naturally changes throughout the day, depending on your emotional state and physical activity levels, but when it stays consistently too high over time it is known as high blood pressure or ‘hypertension’, which literally means ‘over pressure’.

High blood pressure accounts for 20-25% of all deaths worldwide and affects approximately one in three people worldwide. That’s over 16 Million people in the UK, and 50 million people in the USA. Unfortunately, in 90% of cases of high blood pressure (the ‘Primary’ or ‘Essential’ Hypertension cases), doctors are unable to find a physical cause