High blood pressure is an epidemic in America, and as the numbers show, this leading cause of heart attack and stroke is only growing in reported cases. From obesity to poor exercise and diet habits to smoking, drinking and everything in between, as Americans we have found ourselves in a downward spiral of high cholesterol and high blood pressure. Reducing the risk factors by taking control and responsibility for unhealthy routines, and seeking out alternatives to prescription medication for hypertension, can help millions of adults get back on track to a healthier life.

How Do You Get High Blood Pressure?

While there are many factors that can lead to hypertension, there are also many solutions and a multitude of alternatives to prescription medications and drugs that your physician might have in mind. First, let's take a look at how you get high blood pressure, where hypertension stems from, and which factors are predetermined and which risk factors are preventable.

Control Your Blood Pressure to Prevent Heart Disease

High blood pressure is defined by the Mayo Clinic as a common condition in which the force of the blood against your artery walls is high enough that it may eventually cause health problems, such as heart disease.

Blood pressure is determined by the amount of blood your heart pumps and the amount of resistance to blood flow in your arteries. The more blood your heart pumps and the narrower your arteries, the higher your blood pressure.

Blood pressure is made up of two numbers; systolic and diastolic. Both of these numbers calculate your overall blood pressure. If these two numbers are less than 120/80, your pressure is categorized as normal.

How Does High Blood Pressure Cause Heart Disease?

Many individuals are prescribed medications and drugs by their family physicians to help reduce blood pressure and combat the risk factors for heart disease. We have learned through experience and customer testimonials how important is it to understand all of your options when considering solutions to reduce blood pressure.

Your arteries are a work of art, created to transfer blood filled with nutrients and oxygen throughout your body without interruption. The arteries are insanely strong and durable, yet smooth and flexible. Over time, left untreated can change the inner lining of the arteries, causing them to become stiff and hard, also known as arteriosclerosis. Continually left untreated, arteriosclerosis leads to a build up of plaque along the artery walls, which leads to atherosclerosis, the source behind heart attacks and stroke.

It's a lengthy process, and in most individuals the process happens completely undetected. While an individual persists in bad habits such as poor diet and lack of exercise, their artery walls are growing less flexible and hard, and plaque begins to build up, blocking healthy blood flow to your heart, lungs, kidney, brain, and arms and legs.

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Risk Factors

High blood pressure can be the result of many factors, of which are:

· Age - increased age equals increased risk

· Family History - if your father and grandfather battled high blood pressure, so to will you

· Obesity - it's fairly simple, the more you weight, the more work your body must do to pump more blood to your tissues. The increased blood supply needed and the increased energy taken to pump that blood increases pressure against the artery walls, thus increasing pressure

· Exercise - your resting heart rate is often determined by your active cardio heart rate. If you exercise and train your heart to function properly, your resting heart rate will be slower. If you do not exercise, your resting heart rate tends to be higher, thus increasing pressure against the artery walls.

· Smoking - using any kind of tobacco product temporarily raises blood pressure and can change the lining of your artery walls.

· Salt - salt causes your body to retain fluid

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· Stress - that stress plays an enormous role in cardiovascular health.

Reduce Blood Pressure Without Medication

The ultimate 'Go To' for many patients looking to reduce blood pressure is medication and prescription drugs. These medications place toxins and unnecessary chemicals into your body, and many times do not deal with the root of the problem, your daily routine. There are natural alternatives to medications to reduce blood pressure, and, not in all situations, but in many situations these natural alternatives work just as well, if not better, then the medication pathway.

· Lifestyle Changes - How many heart disease deaths each year could be prevented? How many strokes and heart attacks could have been avoided with simply lifestyle changes? The simple idea of being able to naturally prevent heart disease is powerful, and yet the idea of ignoring the simplest lifestyle changes is astonishing. By modestly adjusting your daily routine, you can prevent heart disease! Start by going for long walks, eating more vegetables and less fast food, limiting alcohol and tobacco use, and reducing stress. If you can take baby steps to changing your lifestyle habits to healthy ones, you will prevent heart disease.

Making lifestyle changes are the most difficult to make because they are habits, ingrained in your routine probably since you were a child. But you can make the difference and break the cycle.

· Food and Exercise - In changing your lifestyle, you need to eat healthier and get active. Activity and a healthy diet are key ingredients to kicking those medications.. If you've heard it once, though, you've heard it a million times, am I right? However, there is no way around it - change your poor eating habits and inactivity now, and you can reduce you blood pressure without medication.

· L Arginine Supplements - While there are hundreds of supplements, over the counter medications and prescription medications available to reduce blood pressure, We highly suggest using l arginine supplements like Cardio Juvenate Plus. L arginine supplements offer not only hope for reducing blood pressure without medication, they offer peace of mind. Hundreds of reviews and testimonials across our website only go to prove how dramatically arginine supplements can reduce blood pressure, increase energy and improve your cardiovascular health. L arginine is a precursor to nitric oxide, which facilitates healthy blood flow by widening the arteries and improving the delivery of nutrients to the body. With improved blood flow, pressure is reduced and the prevention of heart disease can be achieved.

• Best Ways to Prevent Heart Disease

· Reduce Stress - Stress plays a major factor because of the body's natural response to stress - the flight or fight response. This inherent response triggers certain chemicals within our body that increase heart rate and place pressure on the entire cardiovascular system, and not the good kind of pressure that exercise might induce. We like to tell our Fans to relax, take a vacation, get away for the day - you need to do it for your heart health. Take responsibility for your life. Taking responsibility means taking time out for yourself, too!

Blood pressure is a measure of the strength your blood makes against the walls of your arteries. When it increases there is a risk that the arteries will break, which usually begins at very small arteries, like the ones in your eyes and kidneys.

High blood pressure is defined as blood pressure above 140/80 mm Hg, or 130/75 mm Hg if you are diabetic or suffer from kidney disease. Pressure above this level increases the risk of stroke, heart disease, blindness, kidney failure and infarct of several organs.

In order to prevent this from happening, you want to keep your blood pressure within the optimal range, which is below 120/60 mm Hg. You can do this with a series of lifestyle changes.

First, if you are overweight you want to lose that excess weight through a healthy diet. There have been many cases of people who were taking medications for hypertension and diabetes and lost some weight and after that didn't need any drugs anymore.

Another truly important thing is quitting smoking. This may not lower your blood pressure (it is still in study), but it will lower the risk of all diseases related to heart attack as much as lowering blood pressure itself and, despite what you may thing, studies have shown that it is actually easier to quit smoking than to lose weight for good.

As for your diet, you want to avoid meat and dairy products and increase vegetables and fruit. Fiber is very important, as are vitamins and minerals. You may also want to lower the salt, though you don't need to stop eating salt entirely.

Exercising is another thing you want to do. Walk for at least 30 minutes 4 times per week (the ideal is 60 minutes 5 times per week) and your blood pressure will lower while you are having fun. A word of caution - always talk to your physician first, because you may have some condition that makes exercise not advisable.

Reducing stress is another great way to lower blood pressure along with a series of other maladies. Try meditation, breathing and visualization.

Last, but not least, check it regularly to make sure the measures are making effect. If they aren't, you may need to take some medications, or perhaps you have another disease to spike. Either way, it is best to consult your doctor.