Not a doctor, but blood pressure is not just a proxy measure, it can be a dangerous condition in its own right that needs to be reduced. It puts stress on the circulatory system and raises the likelihood of strokes, for example.
I have a good diet, do lots of exercise (ride 16-20 ks every day, weights 2-3 times a week), don't smoke (never have), hardly drink (a beer every few weeks), thin (mid BMI), not skinny, not fat and have high blood pressure.
It's a bad vibe that I have to take pill every morning. If there was some way to avoid it I would. If I stop my high goes up to 180.
Do your hands and feet swell? If so, try drastically cutting your salt (20% of DVA) for a few days and test your pressure again.
Salt sensitivity is real.
Yes. It's actually not as simple as it sounds and involved preparing all my own meals. This said. A bottle of salt lasts a long long at home. Eating out is a quick way to get 100% of your DVA in one meal.
Disappointingly, it made no difference to my blood pressure over at least a month.
What it did do is reset my taste for salt. Any outside food tasted so salty at first it was yucky. That wore off after a while.
There is one thing that seems to make a difference and that is consciously drinking a lot of water. This lowers by BP but it has other affects I don't like.
I was diagnosed with hypertension at 10. I am probably an edge case but after extensive testing they have yet to find a root cause for my high blood pressure.
They've concluded that continuing to study me will cause more stress and that I am otherwise healthy - I just need to continue taking my blood pressure medications.
Sometimes it is just something that happens and needs treating by itself
As the article mentions, some people have a genetic mutation that makes them much more likely to have hypertension even if they're doing everything "correctly".
Sure, in some cases it's lifestyle related; the medications lower the risk of heart disease, stroke, dementia, etc. while someone deals with their obesity, diet or other issues.
It's the primary actual cause of heart and stroke related disease, to my understanding. Worse than high cholesterol, obesity, etc. So, yes, hypertension is something that should absolutely be primarily treated.
Dr. Rick Johnson, Prof. of Nephrology (kidney) at U. of Colorado, on a Peter Attia podcast, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V02z9mqTWzg&t=6856s , states that high blood pressure is an inflammatory kidney disease.
What causes the inflammation? There are several causes, including vaso-constrictive drugs like cocaine, but one major cause is high uric acid due to high fructose (caused by high fructose dietary intake or high sodium intake, which over a long enough time, will cause the body to convert glucose to fructose, which then goes along the high fructose dietary intake path)