Hypertension or high blood pressure is a long-term and chronic medical condition affecting 80% population worldwide. Due to this, people face serious health complications of hypertension.
Hypertension is a condition where the blood pressure in arteries continuously rises. Hypertension damages the heart and arteries gradually. Also, it is an alarming situation for people not going for a healthy lifestyle as it is the intimation for various cardiac problems, such as stroke, atherosclerosis, arterial fibrillation, etc.
Hypertension is categorized as Diastolic and Systolic, which means the Maximum and Minimum, respectively. Normal BP is within the range of 120/80mm/Hg.
Lifestyle changes might help overcome the situation, such as physical exercise, food pattern changes, etc. But also people require to go for medications by consulting. These are the following health complications of hypertension that may occur if a person does not take the condition seriously and control it.
Health Complications Of Hypertension
1. Damages To Heart
The heart is the organ supplying blood to the entire body and making the other organs work efficiently. High BP affecting the heart in various ways creates complications for other organs as well.
1. Coronary Artery Disease
This condition affects the artery supplying blood to the heart muscle. If the blood does not flow freely and creates the pressure to narrow the arteries, the patient might get symptoms of stroke, chest pain, or arrhythmias.
2. Enlarged Left Heart
High BP forces the heart to supply blood to the rest of the body, making the left ventricle thicken. This makes the left ventricle disable from working normally, leading to cardiac death, failure, etc.
3. Heart Failure
More strain on the heart due to rising blood pressure weakens heart to work efficiently; as a result, heart attack or heart fail may occur.
2. Damages To Brain
Our brain also needs nourishing blood flow to do work properly and for survival. But high BP damages the arteries throughout the body by creating a clog and put you at higher risk for brain diseases as follows:
1. Stroke
This categorizes mainly in two types
Caused By Blocked Blood Flow
The clot in blood vessels restricted blood reaches the brain. As a result, lack of oxygen cells starts dying within minutes. The clot makes the artery narrower, harder due to fatty plaque deposition around its wall. The clot may either form in blood vessels or anywhere in the body and reaches the brain, which we can call a traveling clot. This may cause an irregular heartbeat called arterial fibrillation.
Caused By Bleeding
This is the deadlier situation than clot formation as weak blood vessels and may get burst as Aneurysm.
2. Transient Ischemic Stroke
It is also called ministroke. There is a temporary blockage of blood flow due to a clot, but this could be an alarming situation for a full-blown stroke.
3. Dementia
This is the condition in which a person’s thinking, reasoning, vision ability may get impaired. It happens due to the narrowing of blood vessels supplying blood to the brain, and high BP might be the culprit behind this.
4. Damages To Eyes
There are small, tiny blood vessels in the eyes supplying blood to the eyes. A person suffering from high blood pressure faces a critical situation as high blood flow affects the eye in various ways:
1. Retinopathy
It is also called Hypertensive Retinopathy. This is an eyesight disorder mainly damaging the retina present at the backside of the eye. The condition occurs when blood flow is too high against the arterial wall. It makes the arteries stretched, narrowed, and damaged, leading to scary conditioning, such as bleeding, blurred vision, and vision loss.
2. Choroidopathy
This condition is where fluid builds up under the retina as leaky blood vessels. The situation results in impaired/distorted vision.
3. Optic Nerve Damage
This condition is where blocked blood flows damages the optic nerves and nerve cells and might cause bleeding and vision loss.
5. Damage To The Kidneys
The kidney is the body’s vital organ required to excrete body waste material, but that all depends on healthy blood vessels. High BP injures the main artery leading to the kidney and also the tiny blood vessels inside the kidney called glomeruli. Damaged blood vessels cause a scary situation, and if the person has diabetes, it could be the worst situation.
1. Kidney Failure
Hypertension damages the blood vessels as high BP pushes the blood forcefully against the artery walls. So, it is obvious that waste products can’t be filtered out and accumulated in kidneys; thus, toxins are formed. Kidney failure is the most common situation for high BP patients.
2. Aneurysms
Aneurysm means the bulge in the arteries, and its potential reason is atherosclerosis, which makes the plaque around the arteries. High BP pushes the blood and makes the artery enlarge and form a bulge. The bulge might get ruptured and cause internal bleeding.
Read Also: 10 Remedies To Control High Blood Pressure
