Hypertension Lab

1. What factors are known to cause increases in blood pressure?
Some factors that can lead to an increase in blood pressure are lack of exercise, overconsumption of salt, and possibly genetics.
2. Use your knowledge about the heart and the circulatory system to make a

hypothesis about how the average blood pressure for a group of people would

be affected by manipulating the age and gender of the group members.
I think that as age increase, so does the blood pressure and that it should be treated immediately. Also I hypothesize that gender does not affect blood pressure.

3. What sorts of problems might a person develop who has chronic

hypertension?
Their blood pressure would be higher than normal and it could be fatal.

4. Analyze the result of your experiment. Explain any patterns you observed.
I noticed that the male blood pressure is higher than the females for all ages. Also that as age increase, so does the blood pressure. This is probably because the younger ones get more exercise. Also, male diastolic numbers are really close to one another.

5. Did the result of your experiment support your hypothesis? Why or why not?

Based on your experiment what conclusion can you draw about the

relationship of age and gender to group blood pressure averages?
My hypothesis that the older the person, the higher the blood pressure was correct but it turns out that female usually have lower blood pressure than male. Due to age, I believe that as age increase, blood pressure will too because of the decrease in exercise. I was surprised to find out, though, that females have lower blood pressure than male. It could be said that some males eat a little more.

6. During the course of your experiment, did you obtain any blood pressure

reading that were outside of the normal range for the group being tested?

What did you notice on the medical charts for these individuals that might

explain their high reading?
Yes, some of the factors could have been genetics and lack of exercise. Also, that those who don't exercise are a lot heavier and may have more issues. I learned a lot of new things from this experiment.

7. List risk factors associated with the hypertension. Based on your observation,

which risk factor do you think is most closely associated with hypertension?

- smoking
- lack of exercise
- genetics
- too much salt
8. What effect might obesity have on blood pressure? Does obesity alone cause a

person to be at risk for high blood pressure? What other factors, in

combination with obesity, might increase a person's risk for high blood

pressure?
Obesity can mean that there is too much fat in your body. This can clot your blood and slow down blood flow. Obesity can cause a person to be at risk of high blood pressure. Being just overweight can lead to high blood pressure.

Snack Time Monday Wellness

In class, for a Monday Wellness presentation, we learned about what we should eat for a snack. The snacks we have just made in class contained only healthy ingredients: apples, peanut butter, and almonds. This is a much healthier improvement that most people eat for a snack each day. We should snack 2-3 times a day and not more because that can be too much. Snacking is good so that we don't over eat during dinner, breakfast, or lunch. A healthy snack should have less than 200 calories and high fiber. We should stay away from unhealthy snacks like chips and ice cream because that can lead to obesity and blood flow problems.
For the activity, I enjoyed making the apple creation because it was really fun and cute! I did not get to eat the apple though but it was definitely fun to make.

Blood Pressure Lab

Today we did a lab where we took each others blood pressure and pulse rate. For the blood pressure area, the systole number is supposed to be higher than the diastole number. The systole was where we started to hear the pulse and the diastole was around where it ended. My systole was around 110-115, where as my diastole number was around 60-70. To be specific, the systolic pressure is the result of the contraction of the ventricles and the diastolic pressure is during the ventricle relaxation.

To measure the heart rate, my partner and I used a stethoscope, which I found really cool. I heard the heart beat clearly. To measure the blood pressure, we used a sphygomanometer, which was a little difficult to use because hearing the pulse was hard.

We should use two fingers instead of our thumb to measure the pulse because it is more accurate using two fingers and you can feel your pulse more.

Using the blood pressure cuff was pretty simple. We just put on the cuff and then press the valve so the cuff tightens. Then we look at the numbers as it goes down when we loosen up the cuffs.

Overall, I found this lab fun and helpful!

Unit 2 Reflection

What is health? To me health is being in good condition physically and mentally. This also means that one is good socially too. Also, being happy in general is a huge factor. I would say that I am pretty healthy. Although I don't always eat healthy, I exercise to balance out my diet. I think that the people at SHS can be both healthy and unhealthy. To promote better health, more healthy foods should be sold and require people to have a certain amount of exercise. In my opinion, though, being healthy is up to you. It's your body and although it's best to take care of it as much as you can, the decision is up to you.
Some themes and things I learned are ways to keep a healthy diet. You shouldn't always just eat fruits and protein just because you think they're healthiest. Our bodies need fat too. We just need to know how to balance and control it.
Health is 5 important pillars: sleep, nutrition, social, stress, and exercise. To be healthy, we should balance all those things out for ourselves.

http://www.nhlbi.nih.gov/health/health-topics/topics/sdd/why

This talks about why sleep is important. I think sleep is really important because it keeps you awake the next morning and gives you the energy you need. This article would help me a lot because I don't take sleep seriously enough. I need to sleep more so that I don't wake up so tired and so that I can function better in school.
Overall, I found this unit to be really interesting and helpful to me in many ways. Next unit, I will definitely try and take more notes and maybe even research some things about the topic on my own!