Effects of high blood pressure
Kidney stones seem to burn. The flu can lay you out for days. And a broken leg? That hip-to-toe cast is hard to ignore.
You can complain all you want about health problems like these. But at least you know you have them, and that they’ll be getting fixed. High blood pressure is different: Not only is it silent, it’s far more dangerous. You can have it for years and never even know. You don’t feel any different, look any different or notice any symptoms. Yet all that time, high blood pressure can quietly be setting you up for heart attacks, strokes and even kidney failure.
“It would be nice if high blood pressure announced itself a little more clearly;’ says Robert Toto, M.D., associate professor of internal medicine at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas. “But unless you somehow find out about it, a lot of damage can be done.”
When blood pressure rises, it puts stress on arteries and veins, Dr. Toto says. This can leave nicks and scratches on the linings of blood vessels, creating snags where plaque can gather. This narrows the openings in the arteries-creating even more high blood pressure as your heart tries to pump blood through smaller tubes.
When doctors measure your blood pressure, they take two readings. The first, called the systolic (the top figure), shows how hard your heart must beat to pump blood through your veins and arteries. The bottom figure, the diastolic, indicates the resistance your blood vessels exert when blood flows back to the heart.
A reading of about 120/80 is considered optimal. When blood pressure readings creep toward 140/90, doctors begin to get concerned. That’s considered borderline high blood pressure, the point at which serious health problems can start. People with high blood pressure are more likely to have a stroke and more likely to suffer a heart attack. High blood pressure also can lower the flow of blood to organs and tissue, depriving them of precious oxygen and nutrients. That’s why high blood pressure can led to kidney disease or even complete kidney failure, Dr. Toto says.
Some experts believe that decreased blood flow also can cause brain damage. Researchers took magnetic resonance images of 35 adults ages 51 to 80 and found that those with high blood pressure showed significant deadening of brain tissue on the left side and great fluid buildup on both sides of the brain. This could be a sign that their brains had actually shrunk in size~ perhaps because high blood pressure prevented small vessels from delivering enough blood and nutrients to the brain cells, according to Declan Murphy, M.D., senior lecturer and consultant psychiatrist with the Institute of Psychiatry in London. High blood pressure can even affect your sex life. Men being treated for high blood pressure are up to four times more likely to become completely impotent in later life, according to Kenneth Goldberg, M.D., director of the Male Health Center in Dallas and author of How Men Can Live as Long as Women.