How Can Our Functional Medicine Doctor Help You?
When it comes to dealing with high blood pressure, seeking the help of a medical professional is of the utmost importance. Having high blood pressure puts you at an increased risk for heart disease, strokes, and other dangerous complications. At the Integrative Cardiology Center of Long Island, our functional medicine doctor has helped many patients manage this condition. To help you do the same, we’d like to share some of the common risk factors that lead to high blood pressure so you can work towards avoiding them.
Using Tobacco
Many issues can arise from smoking or chewing tobacco, and high blood pressure is merely just one of them. To make matters worse, the chemicals present in tobacco products can also damage the lining of your artery walls, causing them to narrow. Both of these occurrences increase the likelihood of suffering from heart disease.
Sodium And Potassium Intake
The amount of sodium and potassium you consume is likely to have a direct effect on your blood pressure. When you consume excess sodium, it can cause your body to retain fluid, leading to increased blood pressure. Potassium is a nutrient that helps to balance out your sodium levels. When you don’t get sufficient amounts of this vitamin, the previously mentioned effects of high sodium intake will take place. If you choose to work with our functional medicine doctor, they’ll be able to develop a dietary plan to keep your blood pressure at a healthy level.
Being Overweight Or Inactive
In many cases, these two causes of high blood pressure tend to go hand in hand. As you increase in weight, more and more blood needs to be pumped throughout the body to deliver oxygen and other key nutrients. This calls for an increased volume of blood to be pushed through blood vessels, increasing the pressure placed on your arteries as a result.
While being inactive may lead to you becoming overweight, it can lead to many other problems as well. People who are inactive tend to have a higher heart rate than those who participate in moderate exercise. As the rate of your heartbeat continues to increase, it must work harder to complete each contraction, contributing to higher blood pressure.
Integrative Cardiology Center Of Long Island – Functional Medicine Doctor
When issues with your heart occur, it can cause parts of the body to become depleted of oxygen and other nutrients. Our functional medicine doctor at the Integrative Cardiology Center of Long Island will work to ensure that this does not happen to you. If you’d like to learn more about the causes of high blood pressure and how this condition can be treated, book an appointment with us today.