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Hypertension : Causes
   
Western Medicine Chinese Medicine

When there is no obvious cause for high blood pressure this is called essential or primary hypertension, which makes up 95 per cent of all hypertension cases. The second kind of hypertension is known as secondary hypertension and makes up about 5 per cent of hypertension cases . Symptoms of secondary hypertension may include elevated blood pressure due to disorders of the kidney, adrenal glands (glands that sit on top of the kidney and secrete hormones), aorta (the main artery of the body) or narrowing of certain arteries. High blood pressure can occur in children or adults, but is more common in people over the age of 35. It is also more prevalent in elderly and in people who have a family history of hypertension. People with diabetes, gout or kidney disease also have a higher risk for hypertension. Lifestyle habits such as smoking, excessive drinking of alcohol and obesity or eating too many sweets and foods high in fat may increase your risk for high blood pressure.
 
Click here to see how hypertension is formed from a TCM Perspective

As mentioned in the definition section, hypertension is characterized in TCM by its symptoms such as "dizziness" and "headache," which are the main manifestations of the disease. Factors that trigger hypertension can be classified into the following:
1. Hyperactivity of liver-yang
  As mentioned in the Chinese medical classics, dizziness caused by wind evil is related to the liver disorder. The liver dominates the conducting and dispersing of qi movement; liver-yang has the property of upward motion and causes qi or other fluids to ascend, while liver-yin has the property of static motion and causes qi, blood and other fluids to descend. Yin and yang mutually restrict and promote each other in order to maintain balance in the body. Hyperactivity of liver-yang and deficiency of liver-yin triggers the qi and blood to ascend to the brain. The acceleration of qi movement also produces wind evils, and leads to symptoms of dizziness, tremors or sudden black outs.
Hyperactivity of liver-yang happens when:
The body is innately weak and suffers from excess yang.
Emotional disturbances such as depression, anger, tension and excessive thinking occurs. This induces stagnation of liver-qi, and the stagnated qi will transform into fire evil to impair yin.
Chronic deficiency of kidney-yin occurs. According to the five elements theory this means the element water (kidney organ) fails to nourish the wood element (liver organ), which results in hyperactivity of liver-yang .
2. Liver-wind and turbid phlegm evils attack upwards
  When the body is ill, yin and yang become imbalanced, and internal disease causing factors like wind and phlegm evils interact with each other. At the same time when the body is in a state of hyperactivity of liver-yang, which means the body has accumulated wind evils too; the wind evils mix with phlegm evils and flow upwards in the body easily. They disturb the meridians and cause the non-smooth circulation of qi and blood. This results in unconsciousness or numbness of limbs that are serious symptoms of hypertension.
Accumulation of phlegm happens when:
Over consumption of food and drink leads to spleen malfunction.
Anxiety and stressful lifestyle lead to spleen-yang deficiency.
Lung-qi is insufficient and fails to perform distribution of body fluids. Consequently an accumulation of body fluid leads to a build up of phlegm.
There is damage to the kidney's vaporization function (kidney's fluid metabolism function), which causes excessive fluid to build up in the body that transforms into phlegm.
3. Imbalance of Yin and yang
  The qi (vital energy) and essence are the main nutrient substances for maintaining the life activities of body. This is the fundamental root of the yin and yang of the whole body. When people get older, kidney-qi will become insufficient, and imbalance of yin and yang will result in the weakening and loss of these nutrients from the kidney. Yin deficiency occurs in the lower part, excessive of yang occurs in the upper part of the body. Yin and yang loss restrains forces inside the body. For example, virtual fire evils (caused by a yang excess) flares up in the upper part of body and causes hypertensive symptoms.
4. Other related causes
  Although other causes of hypertension are still under investigation, researchers have found the following factors do contribute to the causes:
heredity
high salt intake
highly stressful and intensive occupations
lack of physical activities
obesity
smoking
heavy consumption of alcohol
lack of some nutritional ingredients such as unsaturated fatty acid and vitamin C.
Recent findings show that lots of hypertension sufferers are insulin resistant, meaning they are not sensitive to insulin inside the body or suffer from hyperinsulinemia (high blood level of insulin).