High blood pressure

High blood pressure is a “silent killer.” Learn how to stop its stealth attack on vital organs.

Often called the silent killer, high blood pressure can quietly damage your body for years before symptoms develop. Left uncontrolled, you may wind up with a disability, a poor quality of life or even a fatal heart attack.

Learn more about high blood pressure so that you know what’s at stake and can gain a better sense of why successfully managing your high blood pressure is so important.

Here’s a look at the complications high blood pressure (hypertension) can cause when it’s not effectively controlled.

Damage to your arteries

Healthy arteries are flexible, strong and elastic. Their inner lining is smooth so that blood flows freely, supplying vital organs and tissues with adequate nutrients and oxygen. If you have high blood pressure, the increased pressure of blood flowing through your arteries gradually can cause a variety of problems, including:

• Arteriosclerosis and atherosclerosis. The excessive pressure in your arteries from high blood pressure alters the cells of the arteries’ inner lining. That launches a cascade of events that make artery walls thick and stiff, a disease called arteriosclerosis (ahr-teer-e-o-skluh-RO-sis), or hardening of the arteries. Circulating fats pass through the altered cells and accumulate to start the process of atherosclerosis. These changes can affect arteries throughout your body, obstructing blood flow to your heart, kidneys, brain and extremities. The damage can cause chest pain (angina), heart attack, heart failure, kidney failure, stroke, peripheral arterial disease and aneurysms.
• Aneurysm. Over time, the constant pressure of blood coursing through a weakened artery can cause a section of its wall to enlarge and form a bulge (aneurysm). An aneurysm (AN-u-rizm) can rupture and cause life-threatening internal bleeding. Aneurysms can form in any artery throughout your body, but they’re most common in the aorta, your body’s largest artery.