Hypertension and High Blood Pressure

Although African Americans have the highest incident rates of High Blood Pressure and Hypertension in America, there are other populations in the world such as the Germans who have higher rates. There are several factors that contribute to this. Some are the same as the reasons for obesity but there are others that come into play. 

Stress is a major contributor to high blood pressure and Blacks have higher rates of stress and distress because of environmental, social, and economics conditions in many Black communities across the country. Stress is a known and major contributor to elevated blood pressure.

Another theory popularized in the late 80s known as the “slavery hypothesis.” This is the theory that during the slave trade in the middle passage, the Africans who survived were helped because of their higher tolerance to salt.

In other words those with higher blood pressure had a better chance of surviving the passage than those who didn’t. Therefore they survived at high rates and passed these genes on to their offspring. This would explain the reason West Africans do not share this statistic. But this theory is the most disputed of all others but was recently aired on Oprah as fact. This is when many people heard it for the first time.