Treatment
The goal of treating systolic hypertension is to delay and reduce the extent of damage to the heart, the cerebrovascular system, and the kidneys. Lifestyle interventions are a crucial element of successful treatment, including a diet low in sodium (salt) and rich in whole grains, fruits, and vegetables. Clinical trials have also documented the beneficial effects of weight loss, increased physical activity, and limiting alcohol consumption.
In addition to lifestyle changes, medication can also be used to reduce systolic hypertension to safe levels, although medications frequently have side effects, often serious. Two randomized controlled trials have established the value of treating systolic hypertension:
Read more about this topic: Systolic Hypertension
Famous quotes containing the word treatment:
“I am glad you agree with me as to the treatment of the mining riots. We shall crush out the lawbreakers if the courts and juries do not fail.”
—Rutherford Birchard Hayes (1822–1893)
“James’s great gift, of course, was his ability to tell a plot in shimmering detail with such delicacy of treatment and such fine aloofness—that is, reluctance to engage in any direct grappling with what, in the play or story, had actually “taken place”Mthat his listeners often did not, in the end, know what had, to put it in another way, “gone on.””
—James Thurber (1894–1961)
“Any important disease whose causality is murky, and for which treatment is ineffectual, tends to be awash in significance.”
—Susan Sontag (b. 1933)