Quote:
Originally Posted by XtreO  Why is high blood pressure bad? |
That's a good question. Hypertension is something that typically doesn't cause symptoms until far too late. I'll try to summarize a
few of the reasons that hypertension is bad:
1. Perhaps the most dramatic effect of high blood pressure, and the most easy/fun to demonstrate in the office, is that it makes it more difficult for the heart to pump blood. What you do is take a partially inflated blood pressure cuff, roll it up, and squeeze it. Now watch the dial. If you squeeze hard, it'll go up to 120 or so. If you squeeze a LOT harder, it'll go up to, say, 150. Now imagine doing that every second. You'll see that it's much easier to pump at 120 than it is at 150. Your heart works the same way. The heart has very little difficult increasing volume flow, such as while exercising - but it is much harder to pump at increased pressure (resistance).
Having hypertension puts you at risk for a number of heart diseases, including
coronary artery disease (high pressure damages blood vessels and can eventually lead to a
heart attack),
aneurysm (bursting of an artery which is
very often fatal),
heart failure (the heart gets bigger under pressure, which leads to all sorts of problems and eventually death), etc.
2. Having very high blood pressure increases the risk of bursting a blood vessel. In your brain, this can cause a
stroke. Even without having a stroke, people with hypertension sometimes get headaches due to the pressure.
3. The increased blood pressure can
damage your eyes (retinopathy).
4. High blood pressure
destroys your kidneys over time. Uncontrolled high blood pressure is one of the reasons people need kidney transplants. If your pressure is high enough for a long enough period of time, you can wind up peeing blood - not cool!
Also, having hypertension puts you at increased risk for
sleep apnea,
sexual dysfunction, and more (for example, hypertension is a very bad thing for pregnant women).
For those who control hypertension with diet and exercise: great! But it's a good idea to get regular checkups (and also to check pressure at home) to make sure you're OK. If you don't check your pressure for a couple years you may find out you're much higher than you thought you were.
Nowadays there a number of medications for hypertension which cause few, if any side effects, and most of them are generic. Unless you absolutely can't afford the doctor's visits, there's no reason not to get meds for hypertension or at least make lifestyle changes - it's something that can add years to your life.
