High blood pressure dangers: Hypertension's effects on your body

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 heart

Your heart is responsible for pumping blood to your entire body. Uncontrolled high blood pressure can damage your heart in a number of ways, such as:

• Coronary artery disease (CAD). This is a cluster of diseases involving the arteries that supply blood to your heart muscle. Changes to the cells lining these arteries reduce the ability of the arteries to dilate, which can cause chest pain (angina). CAD also occurs when blood flow through your arteries becomes obstructed, usually because of atherosclerosis. When blood can't flow freely to your heart, you can experience chest pain, a heart attack or irregular heart rhythms (arrhythmias). People with high blood pressure who have a heart attack are more likely to die of that heart attack than are people who don't have high blood pressure.
• Enlarged left heart. High blood pressure forces your heart to overexert itself. This causes the left ventricle to enlarge (left ventricular hypertrophy) — just as your biceps get bigger when you lift weights. This enlargement limits the ventricle's ability to expand sufficiently and to completely fill with blood. In turn, the ventricle can't pump out as much blood to your body. This condition increases your risk of heart attack, heart failure and sudden cardiac death.
• Heart failure. Over time, the added exertion demanded by high blood pressure can cause your heart muscle to weaken and work less efficiently. Eventually, your overwhelmed heart simply begins to wear out and fail. Damage from heart attacks adds to this problem.

Damage to your kidneys

Your kidneys are responsible for filtering and excreting excess fluid and waste from your blood — processes that are highly dependent on your blood vessels. High blood pressure can injure both the blood vessels in and leading to your kidneys, causing several types of kidney disease (nephropathy). Having diabetes in addition to high blood pressure can worsen the damage.

• Kidney failure. High blood pressure is one of the most common causes of kidney (renal) failure. That's because it can damage both the large arteries leading to your kidneys and the tiny blood vessels (glomeruli) within the kidneys. Damage to either disrupts the ability of your kidneys to filter waste products from your blood. As a result, dangerous levels of fluid and waste can accumulate. You might ultimately require dialysis or kidney transplantation.
• Kidney scarring (glomerulosclerosis). Glomerulosclerosis (glo-mer-u-lo-skluh-RO-sis) is a type of kidney damage caused by scarring of the glomeruli (glo-MER-u-li). The glomeruli are tiny clusters of blood vessels within your kidneys that filter fluid, waste and other substances from your blood. Glomerulosclerosis can leave your kidneys unable to filter waste effectively, ultimately leading to kidney failure.
• Kidney artery aneurysm. An aneurysm is a bulge in the wall of a blood vessel. When it occurs in an artery leading to the kidney, it's known as a kidney (renal) artery aneurysm. One potential cause is atherosclerosis, which weakens and damages the artery wall. Over time, the excessive pressure of blood coursing through a weakened artery can cause a section to enlarge and form a bulge — the aneurysm. Aneurysms can rupture and cause life-threatening internal bleeding.

High blood pressure emergencies

High blood pressure is typically a chronic condition that gradually causes damage over the years. In some cases, though, blood pressure rises so quickly and severely that it constitutes a medical emergency requiring immediate treatment, often with hospitalization.

In these situations, high blood pressure can cause:

• Brain dysfunction marked by memory loss, personality changes, trouble concentrating, lethargy, or progressive loss of consciousness. (encephalopathy)
• Stroke
• Severe damage to your heart's main artery (aortic dissection)
• Seizures in pregnant women (eclampsia)
• Unstable chest pain (angina)
• Heart attack
• Impaired pumping of the heart leading to fluid backup in the lungs resulting in shortness of breath (pulmonary edema)
• Sudden loss of kidney function (acute renal failure)

In most cases, these emergencies arise because high blood pressure hasn't been adequately controlled.

Prevention makes a difference

High blood pressure's complications are serious. But if your blood pressure is well controlled, you're more likely to keep the most severe problems at bay.

Adopting healthy lifestyle changes can help you manage your disease. For example, reducing your sodium (salt) intake and losing even a little weight can have a dramatic impact on your high blood pressure.

You may also need to take high blood pressure medications. Many of these medications have the added benefit of helping prevent specific complications, such as heart or kidney disease.

Working closely with your health care team, you can get a handle on your blood pressure and live a healthier life.