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Seasonal Effects on High Blood Pressure Levels

Here’s something you probably didn’t know – if you were to lay out the entirety of the blood vessel system of the body it would be over 96,000 kilometers long. That’s how expansive your collection of arteries, veins, and capillaries are and it’s quite something to think about. The blood that your heart pushes out through the entirety of them is essential to life, but one of the realities about arteries is that they can only expand so much. They’re not rigid, but they are only flexible to a point. This is why high blood pressure is a problem, as the arteries are only able to handle so much pressure.

So, what is the most popular medication for high blood pressure? There’s not just one, but Altace and Avapro are two that are frequently prescribed by physicians. We’ll get to others shortly, but let’s continue by making the very necessary connection to atherosclerosis.

The problem with hypertension (the clinical term for high blood pressure) is that it’s so easy to have it and not know about it. But if the condition can continue then it may make the arteries harden. This causes atherosclerosis, and it’s among many very serious health complications that can come from unchecked hypertension. And unfortunately, the primary cause of it is cholesterol, which is a substance which has come to have a ‘bad rap’ in health talk circles because of its connection to heart disease.

It is good to have some cholesterol in the body, but not too much of it. The same way some blood pressure is entirely necessary, but too much of it becomes majorly problematic. The way we get the majority of cholesterol is from the foods we eat, but many of the highest cholesterol foods are not necessarily ones we’d naturally associate with being ‘unhealthy’ foods. Some are from foods that you may eat more of at certain times of the year, but it turns out diet is less of a factor as to why blood pressure levels may vary by season. Eggs are a great example.

So, let’s look at the more relevant factors in that as well as our discussion of what is the most popular medication for high blood pressure.

Fall / Winter = More Hypertension

It’s been proven that generally people who have high blood pressure have less of it in the summertime. This has nothing to do with sunlight levels, temperatures, or anything that might indicate an environmental-physiological connection. Instead it is attributed to people being more active in the summertime, eating lighter foods and eating less overall, and sleeping better too. Many people have an inherently negative connotation with winter, and while that can be a major factor in seasonal affective disorder.

So if you find that your blood pressure meter results are higher in fall or winter, it may be the result of behavioral changes and being ‘healthier’ in the way you were in summer months (perhaps without even being aware of it) could help reduce hypertension during fall and winter. You may be in the know with how to prevent high blood pressure, and you may need to be doubling up those efforts if your lifestyle choices during winter and perspective on it aren’t likely to change.

Oppositely, the summer season means that hypertension levels are lower for many people in the and this may also be even more true for people who live in areas of North America where the weather changes between seasons are very pronounced, which is pretty much everywhere if you live in the Northern US and Canada. Plus, if your lower blood pressure levels in summer are a result of you being more active and enjoying the great outdoors that might be the incentive you need to find winter outdoor activities that are ones that will engage you and you won’t find overly strenuous.

Rx Help

All this talk about diet, activity, and outlook is great, but when it comes lowering blood pressure at any time of the year it’s likely that Rx meds are going to need to have a major role in that. What is the most popular medication for high blood pressure? Popular is a subjective term, but Norvasc (Amlodipine) is the most frequently prescribed hypertension medication in America so maybe we can give it the nod as the most popular one too.

Different medications work differently for different types of people and their unique physiologies. Therefore, there isn’t necessarily one best blood pressure medication. For example, some people with high blood pressure may also be diabetic and have ongoing kidney degeneration and this will mean different treatment for these individuals. You can ask this person what is the most popular medication for high blood pressure and they’ll reply they don’t know, but that Cozaar is the best one for them.

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