BY  CHIOMA OBINNA

Did you know that your belly fat may lead to High Blood Pressure? Recently, the world including Nigerian has witnessed an upsurge in sudden death. Although, there have been so many explanations regarding the causes of these preventable death, one major indicator has remained High Blood Pressure, HBP.

A silent killer, medical expert have stressed the need for regular monitoring and the need for healthy eating.
Unfortunately, many Nigerians are yet to come to terms with the stack reality of the disorder.  Many Nigerians are yet to understand that good food can be healthy food and vice versa but eating well and healthy would give the body a chance and keeps it working well for a long time.  It is now a common place to find young Nigerian suffering from chronic High Blood Pressure.

According to experts, HBP almost never shows up in the body alone. Instead, it usually brings along a dangerous posse of high cholesterol, insulin insensitivity, obesity, and atherosclerosis. Together, this toxic medley represents a huge risk to health and to life. High blood pressure and belly fat are inexorably connected. Fat in the stomach falls into two distinct categories: subcutaneous fat and visceral fat.

Subcutaneous fat is the “pinchable fat” that resides just below the surface of the skin. Visceral fat lives much deeper inside the midsection and causes chaos throughout the body by snaking around organs and manipulating the body’s hormones.

Science is beginning to make the connection between mid-section fat and high blood pressure. Many doctors believe that visceral fat puts pressure on the kidneys and liver, increasing the production of LDL (bad) cholesterol. This cholesterol can make its way up into the arteries of the heart where it decides to put down roots in the form of thick, waxy plaque.

As plaque lines the walls of the heart and arteries, it grows hard and thick forcing the heart to pump harder and harder in order to move blood throughout the body.  And this, results to High Blood Pressure.  The harder the heart has to work, the more easily it becomes tired and the higher the chance of a heart attack or a stroke.

Cardiologists have also discovered that High blood pressure is the gateway to the lifestyle diseases that currently afflict the population, diseases such as diabetes, obesity, cancer and metabolic syndrome. Health officials predict that over 70 per cent of adults will die of preventable lifestyle disease.

Lowering HBP:
However, the best way to lower high blood pressure is to prevent it in the first place. This means tackling your belly fat today.   All the same rules apply to losing belly fat as losing any other fat in the body: eat nutritious meals, exercise and try to relax.