HIGH BLOOD PRESSURE

Blood pressure is a measure of how hard the blood pushes against the walls of your arteries as it moves through your body. Your blood pressure is variable throughout the day. But if your pressure stays up you have high blood pressure or hypertension.

High blood pressure cause damage to the blood vessel walls, and increases your risk for heart disease, stroke and kidney problems.

Patients doesn't experiment symptoms most of the time, but sometimes a headache or vision problems could be indicative of very high blood pressure, when this occur we are exposed to a dangerous high blood pressure called hypertensive emergency.  There are many ways to manage blood pressure, lifestyle changes can lower blood pressure, such eating better, being active, and losing weight. 

The blood pressure measurement consist of two numbers systolic/ diastolic; the following image provides you with the knowledge of it.

  If you have hypertension is important for you to understand the values that are normal and when your risk of complications are increased, that's why we provide you with a table for the American heart association that explain it in a simple way.

VITAMINS

VITAMINS

Vitamins are nutrient components that historically has been classified in water soluble or lipid soluble, by the affinity or aversion to water. 

Water soluble vitamins is known that if any excess is excreted in urine, there is no accumulation in tissues so deficiency is more common and toxicity is less common.

Exceptions to this rule are B12 and B9 

By the other hand fat soluble vitamins any excess is stored in liver or fat and deficiencies are less likely; toxicity is more likely.

A decreased in fat absorption cause a decreased on fat soluble vitamin absorption ending with a fat soluble vitamin problem, this can be manifested by steatorrhea which is fatty stools, this take us to name some of the pathologies that causes steatorrhea.

Anything that reduces enzyme production for the pancreas.

In the future we will discuss the vitamin deficiencies and toxicities.

DIABETES

What Diabetes is?

Diabetes is a really common condition, characterized for having high blood glucose levels, this can be presented by a dissociation between consume and waste of the same.

Meaning by this increase on the ingestion of glucose or a diminution of the use of it by our body.

Classification

Diabetes can be classified into the following general categories:

1. Type 1 diabetes (due to autoimmune β-cell destruction, usually leading to absolute insulin deficiency, including latent autoimmune diabetes of adulthood)
2. Type 2 diabetes (due to a progressive loss of adequate β-cell insulin secretion frequently on the background of insulin resistance)
3. Specific types of diabetes due to other causes, e.g., monogenic diabetes syndromes (such as neonatal diabetes and maturity-onset diabetes of the young), diseases of the exocrine pancreas (such as cystic fibrosis and pancreatitis), and drug- or chemical-induced diabetes (such as with glucocorticoid use, in the treatment of HIV/AIDS, or after organ transplantation)
4. Gestational diabetes mellitus (diabetes diagnosed in the second or third trimester of pregnancy that was not clearly overt diabetes prior to gestation)

Symptoms

Is well known that Diabetes doesn't have specific symptoms but its described with three principal symptoms polydipsia, polyphagia and polyuria; this means so thirsty, so hungry and frequent urination respectively. Eventually diabetic patients will develop more symptoms in the advance state of the disease like tiredness, erectly disfunction, blurry vision, diabetic neuropathy (numb or tingling hands or feet) and poor wound healing . Meaning by this that not all the patients will develop all the symptoms at one time but all of them if uncontrolled glucose levels persist are at risk.

How do we know that we are diabetic?

Diagnostic Tests for Diabetes

Diabetes may be diagnosed based on plasma glucose criteria, either the fasting plasma glucose (FPG) value or the 2-h plasma glucose (2-h PG) value during a 75-g oral glucose tolerance test (OGTT), or A1C criteria