Biology 202 Summer 2016
8 a.m. Online
Devynne Carter
Hypertension is when a person’s force of blood against the artery walls is consistently elevated over a long period of time and causes a constant blood pressure reading above 140/90 mm Hg. When blood pressure is high over long periods of time it can cause permanent long term effects to the blood vessels. You get this reading by measuring how much blood is pumped out of the heart and the overall resistance of the arteries to the flow of blood. You measure the blood pressure by measuring the diastole, which is the heart relaxing and filling with blood, and the systole, which is when the heart is contracting and pumping blood out of the heart. Systolic blood pressure …show more content…
The viscosity of blood being too great can aide in the resistance of blood flow through the arteries creating higher resistance and adding to blood pressure. Vascular reactivity is the ability of the circulatory system to be able to respond to stimuli from pharmacologic and physiologic factors. This would be the blood vessels dilating or constricting in response to the stimuli. Blood volume being too great would raise the pressure in the blood vessels ultimately raising blood pressure. Vascular caliber is the size of the lumen of the blood vessels and if it is small then the blood pressure will raise, if the caliber of the vessel is greater then the blood pressure will go down. Cardiac output is the amount of blood that the heart pumps through the circulatory system in a minute. If the output is low then blood pressure is going to be low, if output is high then blood pressure is going to be high. There are two main diagnoses for Hypertension: Primary Hypertension and Secondary Hypertension. Primary Hypertension is caused by many factors and doctors aren’t able to single out any one cause. Secondary Hypertension is when the high blood pressure comes as a result of something else. This can be another disease or disorder. Secondary Hypertension can be a result of hormone replacement therapy, kidney disease, hyperthyroidism, and many other reversible or controllable