Hypertension, or high blood pressure, is the pressure that your blood exerts against the blood vessel walls. Persistent and chronic hypertension can have damaging effects on organs and blood vessels. Young adults can have primary hypertension, which has no identifiable cause and is related to a family history of high blood pressure, and secondary hypertension, for which there are identifiable, and sometimes treatable, causes.
Obesity
Obesity is a common cause of hypertension in adults and is becoming a more common cause of high blood pressure in children and young adults. Obesity causes high blood pressure by several mechanisms. Obese young adults often have high levels of cholesterol, which clings to the walls of arteries and causes them to narrow. The heart has to increase the blood pressure for the blood to pass through this narrowing. Obese young adults are also more sedentary, which weakens their heart muscle. A weakened heart has to pump twice as often and work harder to circulate blood appropriately, resulting in high blood pressure. Children's Hospital Boston recommends a combination of exercise, healthy eating, frequent monitoring and occasional medication to treat obesity-induced hypertension.
Kidney Diseases
Renal parenchymal diseases are conditions in which the kidneys, which are important organs in the body's control of blood pressure, are affected in some way. For example, conditions that decrease the flow of blood to the kidney, like stenosis or narrowing of the renal artery, can trick the kidney into believing that it needs to retain more salt and fluid, which then increases blood pressure. Conditions that cause glomerulonephritis, or inflammation of the glomeruli, the microscopic filtration units of the kidneys, can also cause hypertension. Some of these conditions include lupus and post streptococcal glomerulonephritis, which can result from a strep throat infection.
Drugs
Young adults who use illicit drugs can also suffer from high blood pressure. In specific, drugs that cause vasoconstriction, or narrowing of the blood vessels, will cause an increase in the blood pressure. Cocaine is one of the most commonly used illicit drugs that cause hypertension. But other legal medicines, both prescribed and over the counter, can cause hypertension in young adults. According to the National Heart Lung and Blood Institute, these include certain asthma medicines, like albuterol; steroids; cold-relief medicines; and birth control pills.
