Most of the time, people with high blood pressure have PRIMARY, or essential, hypertension. It pops up for no easily identifiable reason. Other people have what's called SECONDARY hypertension-it may be a symptom of a specific medical condition, a reaction to a medication or the result of using certain illegal drugs such as cocaine. What we do know about primary hypertension, however, is that there are some very strong risk factors that make you a likely candidate for the problem - and MOST of them are controllable, such as: SMOKING. The chemicals in tobacco can cause your arterial walls to constrict and encourage deposits of plaque, which narrows blood vessels. This double whammy makes it harder for the heart to push blood through the circulatory system, which raises blood pressure. WEIGHT. High blood pressure is twice as common in obese people. INACTIVITY. Your heart works harder if you're couch-bound. And THAT increases the force of blood on your arterial walls. STRESS. The chemicals and hormones the body releases in response to stress raise your blood pressure drastically. And you only make it worse if you try to calm down by eating, smoking or drinking alcohol. Because excessive drinking ups your risk for hypertension. You're also more likely to develop high blood pressure if you consume too much salt, too LITTLE potassium and too LITTLE Vitamin D. And elevated cholesterol levels cause vessel-narrowing plaque deposits that force the heart to pump harder to get blood throughout the body. Risk factors to be aware of, but that you CAN'T control, include: RACE. Unfortunately, hypertension is more common in African Americans, as is stroke and heart attack. AGE. According to Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, about 75 PERCENT of women and 66 percent of men, 75 or older have hypertension. This is probably because as a person ages, arterial walls become less flexible, meaning there's less "give" for blood flow. GENETICS. Hypertension tends to run in families. Other risk factors? For most people, high blood pressure doesn't cause any symptoms. That's why you need to get your blood pressure checked regularly at a doctor's office. To learn more about high blood pressure and heart disease, watch other videos in this series!