Older Age As a Cause of Hypertension

A 55-year-old without high blood pressure has a 90 percent chance of developing it during her lifetime, according to the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute. More than half of Americans age 60 or older have high blood pressure. While age takes a toll on a person's heart and blood vessels, she can do much to lessen its effects on her blood pressure.

Hypertension (High Blood Pressure)

• Blood pressure reflects how hard a person's heart is working and how elastic his arteries are. A blood pressure reading measures the pressure of the blood against the walls of the arteries when the heart is beating (systolic pressure) and when it is at rest (diastolic pressure). The goal is to have a systolic pressure of 120 (or lower) and a diastolic pressure of 80 (or lower). A person whose systolic pressure is 140 mmHg or higher has high blood pressure or hypertension.

Aging

• As people age, they tend to gain weight and be less active. The major blood vessels lose some of their ability to stretch with each heartbeat. According to Len Kravitz, Ph.D., an exercise scientist at the University of New Mexico, this loss of elasticity can add 10 to 40 mmHg to a person's blood pressure. The good news is that many of these factors can be managed.

Risk Factors

• Regardless of age, a person's chance of getting high blood pressure goes up if she is overweight, physically inactive, smokes, under stress, drinks too much alcohol, eats too much salt and doesn't get enough potassium-rich fruits and vegetables.

Complications

• High blood pressure complicates any other medical condition that a person has. It increases the chance of heart failure, kidney failure, heart attack, aneurysms (ballooning weak spots in the wall of an artery) or ruptured blood vessels in the eyes that can lead to vision problems or blindness.

Outlook

• High blood pressure in middle or old age is not inevitable, and many steps can be taken to delay or prevent it even as a person ages. These include eating a healthy diet that maintains a healthy weight, getting regular exercise, not smoking, not drinking to excess, having regular blood pressure checks and having ongoing medical care.