John OsborneChief Medical Officer, ClearCardio LLC · Preventive cardiologist and Chief Medical Officer at ClearCardio

What Causes High Blood Pressure?

15 Oct 2026 · 1 min

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In this educational video, the speaker outlines the major contributors to hypertension. He notes that an aging population adds to higher blood pressure rates, and highlights a significant obesity epidemic in the United States—about 70% of adults are overweight or obese, with roughly 40% classified as obese. Excess body weight is identified as a major risk factor. Additional contributors discussed include high dietary sodium, sedentary lifestyles, certain blood‑pressure‑raising medications, and smoking. The overall message is that demographic and lifestyle trends together create a growing hypertension problem.

Chapters

Our society is becoming both grayer, older, which also contributes to high blood pressure, and also fluffier. So as we gain weight, we have a real epidemic of obesity and overweight in the US. 70% of us fall into either the overweight or obese category. About 40% of us are obese. The remainder are overweight, and only a minority of us actually have normal body weight from the CDC criteria. So weight plays a big role, sodium, sedentary activities, certain medications can elevate blood pressure. Of course, smoking elevates blood pressure.