While most cases of high blood pressure do not have an identifiable cause, there are several risk factors that are known to increase the risk of high blood pressure. Some of the risk factors for high blood pressure that are beyond your control include:

• Older age: the risk of having high blood pressure increases with age.
• Sex: more adult men than women have high blood pressure, but women tend to develop it in greater numbers after menopause.
• Race: high blood pressure is more common among African-Americans and often develops in them at a younger age.
• Family history: having relatives with high blood pressure increases the risk that you will have it too.

There are also several risk factors for high blood pressure that you can control. Limiting the number of risk factors that you have on this list can help reduce your risk of developing high blood pressure:

• Obesity/overweight: carrying extra weight increases your chances of having high blood pressure because your body needs more blood and longer vessels to feed all your fatty tissues. These increase the resistance in your vascular system which increases pressure on the vessel walls.
• Sedentary lifestyle: people who are physically inactive tend to have faster resting heart rates. This makes the heart work harder and increases the force on the wall of the arteries.
• Smoking: using tobacco products, especially smoking, can damage your artery walls leading to narrower arteries, increased vascular resistance, and higher blood pressures.
• High salt intake: too much sodium in your diet causes you to retain fluid in order to dilute out the extra sodium. More fluid means higher blood volume and thus, higher pressures.
• Low potassium intake: potassium is required in your kidneys in order to eliminate sodium from the blood. If you don’t have enough, it is difficult to rid your body of excess sodium.
• Stress: high stress levels temporarily increase blood pressure, sometimes dramatically. Over time, stress can cause prolonged increases in blood pressure.
• Prehypertension: having blood pressure in the 120 — 139/80 — 89 mmHg range is considered prehypertension and increases your risk of developing true high blood pressure.
• Chronic conditions: some diseases increase your risk of high blood pressure; these include high cholesterol, diabetes, kidney disease and sleep apnea.