What factors participate in maintaining normal blood pressure?

Question

Ex. What baroreceptors be one factor

Answer 1

Diet and stress are the two big ones. Exercise is another. Bad habits like smoking and drinking are factors to consider too.

Answer 2

3 years ago, I was diagnosed - hypertension with a reading of 160/100. I used to feel dizzy a lot, my legs had awful cramps, and levels were very low in my potassium, causing my fingers and toes to always cramp together. One day I started to feel really faint while I was driving with my daughter in the back seat and I passed out, hitting 3 cars and ending up in a ditch. That moment,I knew I had to do something because my meds weren't working. I heard about this diet from a friend and thought I'd give it a shot. The results have been remarkable. In just 21 days, I honestly can't remember feeling this good, my blood pressure went from 175/110 to 125/70.

Answer 3

The first answer was very intriguing until I got to a few points made that I must disagree with. First of all, I would like to commend this person for their research and giving an explanation straight out of the pages of the medical textbooks. It's this kind of language (above most people's heads) that hides so much false information. For instance, 1) Being overweight has a large influence on blood pressure. If this was true, we wouldn't have such an obesity problem, because everyone who is 100 lbs or more overweight would die in their tracks. (I'm about 150 lbs overweight and my blood pressure is fine.) 2) Inactivity. While exercise is important for all-around good health, inactivity doesn't necessarily condemn a person to high blood pressure. I see all kinds of people in Yahoo answers with high blood pressure who are very active and exercise regularly. 3) Consuming salt. This has got to be one of the biggest frauds in the health care industry. Doctors are always telling their hypertensive patients to cut back on salt - just before prescribing medication. If salt causes high blood pressure, then cutting back on the salt should lower the blood pressure without the need for medication. This is simple physics at work - remove the cause and the problem corrects itself. The answer to why this doesn't work is below. 4) Eating a balanced diet is important. One word about the potassium mentioned. The person who gave this answer said that you should increase the potassium but lower the salt intake. The only problem with this is potassium needs salt to work properly. The underlying cause of high blood pressure is chronic dehydration - it's as pure and simple as that. One of salt's major functions in the body is that it retains water. Cutting back on salt reduces the water in the body. If too much water is lost, the body may start building salt reserves in the extremities to store emergency water rations, resulting in edema. The "excess" salt found in hypertensive patients isn't "excess" in the sense that too much salt has been consumed (giving rise to the "salt causes high blood pressure" myths). It's "excess" in the sense that there isn't enough water to maintain the proper water/salt ratio in the body. When you don't drink enough water to maintain a balance between the fresh water in the cells and the salty water outside the cells, a water management system kicks in to restore the balance. It does this by increasing the pressure in the salt water area outside the cells and by borrowing some water from the blood to inject into the cells, using a hormone called vasopressin to filter fresh water from the salty water. The pressure needed for this injection process is reflected in the blood pressure readings. Increasing the water and salt intake is all that is necessary to lower the blood pressure. Other nutrients like calcium and potassium are part of the overall picture, but these are easily obtained either through eating or supplements. Making a special effort to include these isn't required to lower the blood pressure - all you need to do is increase the water (and salt slightly).

Answer 4

external factors that we can control are: exercise, nutrition, stress, alcohol, and smoking.