Top 10 Causes Of High Blood Pressure

As Dr. Frita Fisher explains, these are actually the top 10 known causes of high blood pressure. Number zero on the list would be “primary hypertension”, which means high blood pressure with no clear underlying cause.

Superficially, this feels a little like the sometime practice of writing the catch-all “heart failure” as the cause of death on a death certificate, because yes, that heart sure did stop beating. But in reality, primary hypertension is most likely often caused by such things as unmanaged chronic stress—something that doesn’t show up on most health screenings.

Dr. Fisher’s Top 10

• Thyroid disease: both hyperthyroidism and hypothyroidism can cause high blood pressure.
• Obstructive sleep apnea: characterized by snoring, daytime sleepiness, and headaches, this condition can lead to hypertension.
• Chronic kidney disease: diseases ranging from diabetic nephropathy to renal vascular disease can cause high blood pressure.
• Elevated cortisol levels: conditions like Cushing’s syndrome or disease, which involve high cortisol levels, can lead to hypertension—as can a lifestyle with a lot of chronic stress, but that’s less readily diagnosed as such than something one can tell from a blood test.
• Elevated aldosterone levels: excess aldosterone from the adrenal glands causes the body to retain salt and water, increasing blood pressure, because more stuff = more pressure.
• Brain tumor: tumors that increase intracranial pressure can cause a rise in blood pressure to ensure adequate brain perfusion. In these cases, the hypertension is keeping you alive—unless it kills you first. If this seems like a strange bodily response, remember that our bodily response to an infection is often fever, to kill off the infection which can’t survive at such high temperatures (but neither can we, so it becomes a game of chicken with our life on the line), so sometimes our body does kill us with one thing while trying to save us from another.
• Coarctation of the aorta: this congenital heart defect results in narrowing of the aorta, leading to hypertension, especially in the upper body.
• Pregnancy: pregnancy can either induce or worsen existing hypertension.
• Obesity: excess weight increases blood flow and pressure on arteries, raising the risk of hypertension and associated conditions, e.g. diabetes etc.
• Drugs: certain medications and recreational drugs (including, counterintuitively, alcohol!) can elevate blood pressure.

For more information on each of these, enjoy:

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Take care!