Complications

Major complications of high blood pressure are heart disease, stroke, damage to the retina of the eye, kidney failure and vascular changes resulting in decreased blood supply to the limbs.

Your heart:If you work hard lifting weights, your arm muscles will enlarge. In the same way, when the heart has to work harder for an extended time, it tends to enlarge. When your blood pressure is too high, your heart has to work progressively harder to pump enough blood and oxygen to your body's organs and tissues to meet their needs. The heart muscle stretches and thickens, and the heart stops functioning properly. A significantly enlarged heart has a hard time meeting the demands put on it and can fail.

Your arteries: Arteries are the vessels which carry blood throughout your body. When your blood pressure is too high, the arteries become scarred, hardened and less elastic. This occurs to some degree in all of us as we age, but elevated blood pressure speeds this process, which is called "hardening of the arteries" or atherosclerosis. Hardened or narrowed arteries may be unable to supply the amount of blood the body's organs need. If the organs don't get enough oxygen and nutrients, they can't function properly. There is also a risk that a blood clot may lodge in an artery narrowed by atherosclerosis, depriving part of the body of its normal blood supply.

If the arteries that supply blood to the heart become clogged, blood flow to parts of the heart is slowed. When one vessel is completely closed off, blood ceases to flow to part of the heart, and portions of the heart muscle are damaged. This is a heart attack.

Narrowing of the arteries may also cause chest pain, called angina pectoris. Narrowing of the arteries in the legs causes cramping and pain because the tissues are not getting enough oxygen.

Your brain: Stroke may be caused by the progressive narrowing of the blood vessels in the brain. When blood flow becomes inadequate, brain cells are robbed of oxygen, and they die. Narrowing of the vessels also leads to a situation where a blood clot cannot move through the arteries; it blocks the flow of blood and deprives the tissue beyond of oxygen. About 80% of strokes are caused by the blockage of an artery in the neck or brain.