About one-third of Americans have high blood pressure, reports the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. High blood pressure increases your risk for the two leading causes of death in the United States -- heart disease and stroke.

Prescription medications are generally safe and effective, but many of them can interact poorly with certain foods. Blood pressure medications are one example of drugs that can be affected by the food you eat.

Peppermint is "a popular flavoring for gum, toothpaste, and tea, is also used to soothe an upset stomach or to aid in digestion," according to the University of Maryland Medical Center. Peppermint can relieve a variety of ailments, including digestive problems, muscle aches and headaches.

A blood pressure cuff is a device used to measure the force of the blood in the veins and arteries. At rest, the force of blood flow is constant and, in healthy individuals, ranges between 110/70 and 120/80. The larger number is the systolic number--the force of blood as the heart contracts.

Lisinopril is an ACE inhibitor used to treat high blood pressure. It may also be used to treat heart failure in combination with other drugs. This drug may cause side effects that are bothersome or persistent.

Headaches during or after exercise can be due to a variety of factors. In some cases, exercise itself is the cause of a headache, which is appropriately referred to as an exercise headache. Some exercise headaches are harmless, but others may be caused by serious problems with your heart or blood vessels.

According to statistics published by the American Heart Association (AHA), roughly 74 million people in the United States over the age of 20 have hypertension, a health condition responsible for approximately 60,000 deaths per year.

High blood pressure puts patients at an increased risk of developing cardiovascular disease. Chronically elevated blood pressure allows cholesterol to accumulate in the arteries, resulting in atherosclerosis; it also makes the heart work harder to pump blood, resulting in a greater chance of heart failure.

Diastolic blood pressure is the force of the blood pushing against the artery walls when the heart is at rest, MedlinePlus says. High diastolic blood pressure almost always accompanies a high systolic pressure and is indicative of pre-hypertension or hypertension, commonly known as high blood pressure.

If left uncontrolled, high blood pressure increases risk of heart attack, stroke and kidney failure, and may even lead to death (see reference 1 para 1). In a majority of cases, anti-hypertensive medication is the most effective and primary mode of treatment for high blood pressure (see reference 1 para 4).

Doctors can't pinpoint one single identifying factor as to the cause of high blood pressure, or hypertension, but evidence has shown that diets high in saturated fat, sodium and cholesterol can increase blood pressure. This means eating too much meat — red meats especially — can have negative health effects.

Home blood pressure monitoring is an important component of managing high blood pressure, and is recommended by the American Heart Association, the American Society for Hypertension and other medical organizations. Taking a manual blood pressure reading is a simple yet significant task.