The risks of hypertension

Retirement doesn't come easily to Bettye Cooper.

She has tried a couple of times.

But at age 71, it still hasn't stuck. Currently she's a rental agent for a 32-apartment complex in Hartford.

About a year an half ago, she was renting out an apartment and started to feel poorly. "I felt extremely warm, the room started getting small and I started getting a pain up my left shoulder and arm that stopped at my elbow."

She finished up with her client, took a Pepcid and an aspirin and had her husband walk across the street with her to the clinic.

"Next thing I know, I was on a gurney being taken into (Sioux Falls). My blood pressure was 210 over something."

She was having a heart attack.

While Cooper knew she had high blood pressure for years before her heart attack, most people don't realize it until they've had some sort of medical emergency, says Tom Stys, interventional cardiologist with Sanford Heart Hospital and medical director of the cardiology program.

High blood pressure is often called the silent killer because there are few symptoms, and those symptoms may be vague and easily ignored.

Thirty-three percent of Americans have high blood pressure, or hypertension.

That statistic hasn't changed much in a decade, says Sarah Yoon, an epidemiologist at CDC's National Center for Health Statistics.

However, more than half of those aware of their hypertension do not have their blood pressure adequately controlled, says Gregg Fonarow, a professor of cardiology at the University of California.

Yet 80 percent of hypertension is preventable through lifestyle modifications, Stys says. Simple remedies such as regular exercise, weight loss and diet improvements can net big changes.

Men are at a higher risk of developing hypertension, as are those who are overweight and physically inactive, Stys says.

An elevated blood pressure affects all major organs, including the heart, brain, kidneys and even eyes. It also increases the risk of heart attack and stroke, Stys says.

Blood pressure, as defined by the American Heart Association, is the force of blood pushing against the walls of the blood vessels. When it's high, that means the pressure in the arteries is elevated. The reading is written as two numbers: The top is the systolic pressure, or the pressure when the heart beats; the bottom is the pressure when the heart rests in between beats.

Clint Brown didn't know he had high blood pressure. Fit and in his mid-30s, it wasn't even on his radar.

Last year, he was running six to eight miles a day, lifting weights and eating healthy.

"I was in the best shape of my life," says Brown, 36, of Sioux Falls.