High blood pressure and blood potassium: the close relationship you need to know.
In the battle against high blood pressure, we often focus on the numbers on the blood pressure monitor and ignore another equally important indicator - blood potassium. Blood potassium is a seemingly unfamiliar term, but it is actually closely related to our health. Today, let's dive into the mysterious relationship between high blood pressure and blood potassium and how blood pressure medications affect blood potassium levels.
First of all, let's dispel the myth that potassium, an essential element of the human body, is often misunderstood as an inscrutable medical concept. In fact, potassium is one of the cornerstones of maintaining the normal functioning of the human body. Imagine if a cell loses potassium, it's like losing a compass and not working properly. Potassium plays a vital role in the proper functioning of the muscular nervous system, as well as in the maintenance of kidney function.
Once the potassium level in the body is out of balance, whether it is too high or too low, it will bring huge health risks. Severe hypokalemia may lead to muscle weakness and even paralysis of the heart muscle and respiratory muscles. Severe hyperkalemia can lead to malignant arrhythmias that can be life-threatening.
So how does our body maintain potassium's electrolyte balance under normal conditions? The answer is that there is a powerful regulatory mechanism in the body. Under normal dietary conditions, the risk of blood potassium disorders is actually not high. But that doesn't mean we can take it lightly, as blood pressure medications, especially some types of blood pressure medications, can have an effect on blood potassium.
The first type of common antihypertensive drugs are diuretics, among which thiazide diuretics such as hydrochlorothiazide and indapamide are used to promote the excretion of excess water from the body. However, they also increase urinary potassium excretion, which may lead to a risk of hypokalemia. Especially for those who take larger doses, or for older friends, it is more important to pay attention to supplementing potassium-rich foods to reduce the risk of hypokalemia.
Spironolactone, another type of diuretic, is a potassium-sparing diuretic, and friends who take this type of drug need to be alert to the risk of elevated blood potassium.
Next are the antihypertensive drugs of the dipine class, which work by dilating blood vessels, thereby achieving the purpose of lowering blood pressure. These drugs do not have a clear effect on serum potassium and do not have significant adverse effects on kidney function. However, antihypertensive drugs such as pril and sartan may have some effect on serum potassium.
Both classes of drugs are indicated in the label and may cause the risk of adverse effects of elevated blood potassium, which is mainly related to their effects on the kidneys. However, it is important to note that the risk of potassium elevation from these drugs is greatly increased only when kidney function is impaired. For those with normal or mildly impaired kidney function, there is no need to worry too much about elevated blood potassium. Similarly, hypertensive patients with severe renal impairment should be cautious with sartan or pril antihypertensive drugs.
Finally, there are lollites, also known as receptor blockers, which also have a mildly elevated effect on blood potassium, but their effects are relatively small. Therefore, for hypertensive patients with normal kidney function, there is no need to worry too much about potassium in the blood when taking these drugs.
Drugs such as sacubitril-valsartan have a similar effect on serum potassium as sartans, so they can be followed in the same way as sartan and pulis.
In summary, hypertension and blood potassium are closely related, and antihypertensive drugs and blood potassium are equally closely related. For friends who have been taking antihypertensive drugs for a long time, it is very important to pay attention to blood potassium levels, which is not only related to the antihypertensive effect, but also related to the maintenance of physical health.
When taking antihypertensive drugs, you need to pay more attention to your physical condition, and at the same time follow the doctor's guidance to make necessary examinations and adjustments to ensure that the medication is safe and effective, so that blood pressure can be kept at an ideal level, and escort your health!
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