Dr. Sanjay Gupta

when they're lifting all this weight above their head, you can see their blood vessels sticking out and their eyes ready to pop out, you know?

And we don't see anything bad happen to them.

We say, well, this is because they are exerting this amount of effort.

It is in direct response to what they're doing.

So the point is that our body and our body's blood vessels have the ability over a period of time to cope with certain pressures based on environmental factors, et cetera.

The problem arises...

When, over a period of time, our blood vessels start losing their elasticity.

And when our blood vessels start losing their elasticity, they can no longer stretch to accommodate some of that pressure, keeping that pressure down.

And so if the blood vessels cannot stretch because of wear and tear, hardening, etc., that's when the blood pressure goes up.

So one has to distinguish between, oh, is this just physiological?

Is this because I'm just stressed?

Is this because I'm just eating the wrong food?

Or is there a harmful process going on in my body which is causing progressive hardening of my blood vessels, which then results in the sustained elevation in blood pressure?

I think that in some people, the blood pressure is a symptom of something else.

And it is probably the lifestyle, the obesity, the bad food, all that kind of thing that probably causes the blood pressure to be elevated and also contributes to type 2 diabetes, fatty liver, all that kind of thing.

And that probably harms more people.

than just looking at blood pressure as a single variable.

You know, I think that's really important to say.

For example, what happens is a patient goes because they carry too much weight, they're stressed, they're not sleeping, they're eating all the wrong food.

They go to their doctor, their blood pressure is up.