How does high blood pressure hurt the kidneys?
High blood pressure makes the heart work harder and, over time, can damage blood vessels throughout the body. If the blood vessels in the kidneys are damaged, they may stop removing wastes and extra fluid from the body. The extra fluid in the blood vessels may then raise blood pressure even more. It's a dangerous cycle.
High blood pressure is one of the leading causes of kidney failure, also called end-stage renal disease (ESRD). People with kidney failure must either receive a kidney transplant or have regular blood-cleansing treatments called dialysis. Every year, high blood pressure causes more than 25,000 new cases of kidney failure.
How can blood pressure be controlled?
People with prehypertension or high blood pressure should :
- maintain their weight at a level close to normal.
- eat fresh fruits and vegetables, grains, and low-fat dairy foods.
- limit their daily salt, or sodium, intake to 2,000 milligrams. They should limit frozen foods and trips to fast food restaurants. They should read nutritionlabels on packaged foods to learn how much sodium is in one serving. Keeping a sodium diary can help monitor sodium intake.
- get plenty of exercise—at least 30 minutes of moderate activity, such aswalking, cycling, or swimming, most days of the week.
- avoid consuming too much alcohol. Men should have no more than two drinks—two 12-ounce servings of beer or two 5-ounce servings of wine or two 1.5-ounce servings of hard liquor—a day. Women should have no more than a single serving a day because differences in the way foods are broken down in the body make women more sensitive to the effects of alcohol.
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