If the heart has contracted the most, then the blood pressure is highest. When the heart relaxes, no more blood is pumped through the arteries and the blood pressure drops to its lowest value.
High blood pressure (hypertension) occurs when the pressure of your blood on the walls of your blood vessels rises. High blood pressure damages the small blood vessels in your kidneys and prevents the filtering process from functioning properly. The reasons for high blood pressure are very often unknown. However, it is usually associated with your general health, your lifestyle and your eating habits.
Our daily lives involve many factors that promote the development of high blood pressure. The risk factors can be roughly divided into influenceable and uninfluenceable factors.
Uninfluenceable factors are age, gender and genetic predisposition.
Influenceable factors include smoking, stress, excessive performance demands, obesity, alcohol consumption, diabetes and a high-fat diet. But a salty diet can also maintain high blood pressure. Processed (ready-made) food in particular is often very salty. Inactivity also plays a major role, but also fat metabolism and protein excretion.
Since high blood pressure often goes undetected and does not cause any discomfort, kidney damage caused by high blood pressure is a widespread problem today. An early sign of this can be the prolonged presence of protein excretion (microalbuminuria) in urine. This is where targeted medical intervention comes into play, in order to prevent something more serious.