As you grow older, keeping your heart healthy becomes increasingly important. One important way you can do this is by keeping your blood pressure within the recommended healthy range. Learn about the increased likelihood of hypertension with age and how you can protect your heart.
Changes in Blood Pressure Over Time
Your blood pressure tends to rise as part of the natural aging process. This increase is largely driven by changes in your arteries and arterioles, which are the large and small blood vessels that carry blood from your heart to tissues and organs.
Hardening of the Arteries
With advanced age, your arteries progressively stiffen and lose elasticity through a process referred to as atherosclerosis or artery hardening. This causes your blood vessels to become less flexible, forcing your heart to pump harder to move blood through them. The extra strain on your heart leads blood pressure to creep upwards.
Isolated Systolic Hypertension
In many older adults, the top number of the blood pressure reading (systolic blood pressure) goes up while the bottom number (diastolic blood pressure) stays the same or drops slightly. This pattern, known as isolated systolic hypertension, is the most widespread form of high blood pressure in older people.
The reason stems from stiffening arteries. As arteries calcify and lose elasticity, they offer more resistance to blood flow. This resistance amplifies pressure on artery walls when the heart contracts to push out the blood (systolic phase).
Between beats, when the heart relaxes (diastolic phase), pressure drops less than it should because stiff arteries have a harder time expanding. The end result is heightened systolic blood pressure along with normal or only mildly elevated diastolic blood pressure.
Risks of Age-Related Blood Pressure Changes
Allowing blood pressure to creep upwards unchecked puts you in more danger of experiencing issues such as a heart attack, stroke, kidney failure, and other complications. That’s why getting your blood pressure evaluated regularly is essential. Your doctor can help determine if you have hypertension and require medication to get back on track.
Lifestyle Approaches for Healthy Blood Pressure
While some increase in blood pressure with age is expected, that doesn’t mean you have to accept it as inevitable. Numerous lifestyle measures allow you to mitigate age-associated blood pressure rises, enhancing heart health in the process.
Focus on Nutrition
What you eat impacts blood pressure significantly, for better or worse. Research confirms that certain dietary changes help thwart age-related blood pressure increases.
Limit Sodium
Sodium encourages fluid retention, spikes blood volume, and makes arteries less elastic, all factors that drive up blood pressure. Older individuals often have a higher sensitivity to salt. Noticeable swelling in the legs, feet, or abdomen could signal excess sodium intake.
Emphasize Potassium
Whereas sodium promotes water retention and stiffness in blood vessels, potassium helps flush out excess sodium and relaxes tense arteries. Focusing on potassium-rich foods may help keep your blood pressure in a healthy range as you age.
Up Fiber, Especially Soluble Fiber
Soluble fiber soaks up fluid in your digestive system, promoting satiety along with healthy blood sugar and cholesterol. Evidence indicates soluble fiber may also lower blood pressure significantly.
Other Blood Pressure-Friendly Nutrients
Making sure you get a sufficient amount of nutrients such as magnesium, calcium, and vitamin C may also help mitigate age-related rises in blood pressure. Discuss screening tests for nutritional deficiencies with your physician and if targeted supplementation makes sense.
Stay Active
Exercise helps keep arteries elastic, preventing stiffening that can raise blood pressure. Physical activity also aids healthy weight management and reduces stress, both of which impact blood pressure.
Try to get in about two and a half hours weekly of moderately intense exercise, such as speedy walking, for the best results. Also, do strength training at least twice weekly using free weights, gym machines, or your own body weight.
Keep Stress in Check
Chronic stress may increase blood pressure. Identify your stress triggers, then adopt coping strategies that work for you, such as pursuing hobbies, getting enough sleep, or confiding in loved ones. You can also attempt meditation and other forms of relaxation practices.
If you still feel overwhelmed by anxiety or depression, seek counseling to learn positive coping mechanisms. Managing stress effectively is essential for maintaining healthy blood pressure.
Quit Smoking to Protect Your Heart
Smoking speeds up the hardening and thickening of arteries, leading to sharper blood pressure rises with age. Additionally, cigarettes contain chemicals that impede blood pressure medications.
Kicking the habit remains incredibly impactful for controlling age-related blood pressure increases and safeguarding heart health over the long term. Talk to your doctor about nicotine replacement therapy, prescription cessation aids, and other support to stop smoking more easily and avoid going back.
Address Other Medical Conditions
Various chronic medical problems contribute to higher blood pressure as you get older. You can also help stabilize your blood pressure over the long run by taking medications as prescribed and making lifestyle changes to better manage conditions such as:
- Diabetes and prediabetes
- High cholesterol
- Hypothyroidism
- Sleep apnea
Don’t hesitate to ask your healthcare providers how to better regulate any ongoing health issues.
Take Blood Pressure Medications Consistently
If lifestyle modifications aren’t sufficient to lower your blood pressure to an acceptable level, medications might be necessary. Many older adults need two or more drugs to minimize health risks.
Common medication types prescribed for high blood pressure include beta-blockers, diuretics, ACE inhibitors, ARBs, and calcium channel blockers. Each works a bit differently to lower pressure.
Stay actively involved in your medical care. Discuss any side effects of the drugs with your physician, but don’t stop treatment on your own. Inconsistent medication use allows blood pressure to spiral out of control, increasing the risk of emergencies like stroke or heart attack.
Manage Hypertension with Help from Imperial Center Family Medicine
Imperial Center Family Medicine’s clinicians specialize in senior care and chronic disease management. We’re passionate about empowering patients of all ages to improve their wellness through therapeutic lifestyle improvements.
Our team would be delighted to partner with you on safe, sustainable strategies to control blood pressure as part of a complete care plan personalized to your needs. Contact us today at 919-873-4437 or through our site to schedule your initial appointment.