High blood pressure rates appear to increase in the United States, according to a report released by the US National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute this week. It should come as no surprise considering the fact that the condition is common in obese people and according to the latest statistics of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, obesity is in continuous growing in the US, affecting more than one in four adults. While in 2005, 23.9 percent of US adults were obese or had a body mass index greater than 30, in 2007, the percentage had grown to 25.6 percent. This percentage translates in more than 60 million adults. Both poor diet and a lack of exercise are blamed.

High blood pressure is a serious condition that can lead to coronary heart disease, heart failure, stroke, kidney failure and other serious health problems. Besides obesity, there are other factors contributing to the condition including a family history of high blood pressure, smoking, alcohol use, excessive salt in diet and a sedentary lifestyle.

The bad part is that the condition has no visible symptoms and that’s why most people are unaware that they have it, exposing themselves to serious risks.

The findings are based on data collected from 30,781 people who participated in two National Health and Nutrition Examination surveys. The first ran from 1988 to 1994 while the second covered 1999 to 2004.

Overall, the surveys found an increase of people suffering from high blood pressure between the two surveys. For women, the increase started at age 40 and among men at age 60. To be more specific, the percentage of Americans with the condition increased from 50.3 percent to 55.5 percent between 1994 and 2004. Moreover, people living with prehypertension, a condition prior to hypertension, increased from 32.3 percent to 36.1 percent.

The good news was that the number of people aware of their condition increased 5 percent, particularly among black women. Seventy two percent of those with high blood pressure were aware of it, 61 percent were being treated, but only 35 percent had their blood pressure under control.

“For those who have hypertension, additional efforts are needed to diagnose, treat and effectively control hypertension to reduce the adverse outcomes associated with hypertension,” said lead researcher Paul Sorlie, chief of the Epidemiology Branch in the institute's Division of Prevention and Population Sciences.

What should you do to prevent high blood pressure? It may be simple when say it, but it could get harder in practice for most Americans, if asking them to maintain a healthy weight. But this is surely not impossible with a healthy diet including many vegetables and fruits and less salt and more exercise. Of course, no one said to visit the gym every day since there are so many activities you could do outside a gym such as running in the park, playing with your kids, walking as much as possible, and the list could go on. But most of all, you should track your blood pressure on your own and not expect until the next visit you pay to the doctor.