Problems Due To High Blood Pressure

High blood pressure can cause a number of truly serious, life-altering problems if not controlled. This is why there is so much emphasis on regular checkups and making the changes needed to keep hypertension in check.
Without treatment, hypertension does damage to the lining of artery walls, making them thick and stiff (called arteriosclerosis or "hardening of the arteries"). Once the walls are damaged, cholesterol has an easier time attaching; the walls narrow and more pressure is needed to push the blood through.
Making the heart work harder than it has to isn't't wise either. High blood pressure increases the risk of a heart attack by as much as five times, depending on the severity of the reading.

It also substantially increases your risk for stroke by about ten times, depending on the height of your pressure.
Hypertension is also seen as a precursor to congestive heart failure at least 75% of the time.
Beyond what uncontrolled high blood pressure will do in damage or disease to the heart, it can also cause:

Organs like the kidneys and eyes to deteriorate
Silent blockages in the brain that can lead to stroke
Increased risk of Metabolic syndrome
Reduced short term memory or mental abilities, dementia over time
A loss of bone mineral density

Controlling your high blood pressure is the best way to protect yourself, and your family, from the potential consequences of this life-threatening condition.

Learning All About "The Silent Killer"

Here's some of what I learned during my research on high blood pressure (or hypertension to give it it's other name):
First off, if you know you have high blood pressure you should consider yourself very lucky.
Estimates suggest that nearly one third to as many as one half of those with high blood pressure don't even know they have it. That's the reason this condition is called "the silent killer", because for many people it offers no signs ... no symptoms ...and no warnings of the danger present.
If symptoms do appear, it's because blood pressure levels have reached the danger zone ... maybe even to the point of no return.
The risk of having high blood pressure goes up, for both men and women, as we age. Some people think of high blood pressure as only a disease of the old, but young people can have it too.
Before age 55, more men than women have hypertension. After 55, things reverse and women gain on men until they are the ones with the higher number of hypertension diagnosis.
An estimated 50 million Americans are suffering with this condition right now.
Estimates suggest that between 5% and 10% of high blood pressure is the result of kidney disease, sleep apnea, cirrhosis, Cushing's disease or pregnancy; as for the other 90% to 95%, causes remain unclear.
Current thinking is that high blood pressure may be the result of a mix of lifestyle and diet in people with genetic tendencies. Other risk factors such as race, obesity, stress, smoking and lack of exercise are all thought to increase the likelihood of developing high blood pressure.