What Are the Health Risks of High Blood Pressure?

Even though you can't see, hear or feel blood circulation, a high blood pressure level can sneak up on you and create significant health risks. It can affect your brain, eyes, arteries, kidneys and heart.

Brain

High blood pressure is the most important risk factor for stroke. It causes arteries, which carry blood throughout your body, to narrow. So, less blood gets to parts of your body, including your brain. If a blood clot blocks one of the narrowed arteries, a stroke (thrombotic stroke) may occur. A stroke can also occur when very high pressure causes a break in a weakened blood vessel in the brain (hemorrhagic stroke).

Eyes

High blood pressure can eventually cause blood vessels in the retina of the eye to leak, burst or bleed and can cause blindness.  The association of diabetes and hypertension causes more profound changes leading to diabetic retinopathy and blindness.

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Arteries

As people get older, arteries throughout the body "harden," especially those in the heart, brain and kidneys. High blood pressure speeds up this process. This speeds the buildup of cholesterol and fats in the blood vessels like rust in a pipe, which prevents the blood from flowing through the body, and in time can lead to a heart attack or stroke. Over time, uncontrolled high blood pressure can also cause damage to the aorta (the major blood vessel that carries blood out of the heart). It can cause a weakness in the wall of the aorta that can bulge (aortic aneurysm) and possibly rupture.

Kidneys

The kidneys filter the blood to rid the body of wastes. Over time, high blood pressure can narrow and thicken the blood vessels of the filtering apparatus in the kidneys (hypertensive nephropathy). Then the kidneys filter less fluid, and waste builds up in the blood. The kidneys may quit working altogether (ESRD or end-stage renal disease). When this happens, treatment (dialysis) or a kidney transplant is needed.

Heart

High blood pressure is a major risk factor for heart attack. Arteries bring oxygen-carrying blood to the heart muscle. When the arteries that bring blood to the heart muscle cannot carry enough oxygen, chest pain, also known as "angina," can occur. If the flow of blood is totally blocked, a heart attack results. High blood pressure is a major risk factor for congestive heart failure (CHF). CHF is a serious condition in which the heart is unable to pump enough blood to supply the body's needs. High blood pressure causes the heart to work harder. Over time, this causes the heart muscle to thicken and stretch. Eventually the heart fails to function normally, causing fluids to back up into the lungs.High blood pressure coupled with high cholesterol increases your coronary heart disease risk by five times. If you also smoke, your risk is again doubled.