Why does high blood pressure cause people to have a heart attack, stroke, heart failure and kidney disease ?what is the physiological explanation to that?
Posted by nutterorsaintuchoose
High blood pressure causes strain on the blood vessels carrying blood around your body. This strain can cause vessels to become clogged up or to weaken, and this can lead to narrow blood vessels and clots that can cause damage to the heart or brain. Having high blood pressure can also cause heart and kidney failure.
It is important to realise that the higher your blood pressure, the higher your risk of heart disease or stroke. This means that all of us should be adopting a lifestyle that will help to lower our blood pressure whether we have high blood pressure or not.
Posted by RMB M.D.
I'll break your question down one system at a time:
1. Why heart attack? Well, the higher your systemic blood pressure is, the harder your heart has to work to pump against that pressure. Which would be harder: quickly squeezing a gallon of water through a pipe 1 foot in diameter or through a pipe 1 inch in diameter? Hard work over an extended period of time often leads to heart failure and increased risk of heart attack. Also, remember that the heart itself is supplied by blood vessels that get blood from the heart. Increased pressure + narrowing due to cholesterol plaques = increased risk of heart attack
2. Why stroke? High blood pressure can certainly cause vessel breakage - which causes a stroke due to active bleeding in the brain (that blood is no longer available to the area it normally supplied). More commonly, stroke is caused by a combination of factors including high blood pressure and vessel plaque that breaks off and travels to the brain where it becomes a clog. When a plaque becomes a clog, blood can no longer pass to the area it normally supplies. High blood pressure contributes by increasing the turbulence inside the vessel walls. This increased turbulence and pressure damages vessel walls - which makes it easier for plaque to form. The high pressure also causes plaque to dislodge after it is formed.
3. Why Heart Failure? See above. Heart working harder to pump against increased resistance. Short term okay. Long term leads to heart failure.
4. Why kidney disease? Basically vascular and kidney tissue damage due to high pressure. Think about a sand blaster or a pressure washer. Think about what a pressure washer would do to a stone or wood or your car over time. That's essentially what happens to the small vessels and urine filtration structures in your kidneys after long term exposure to high pressures.
Hope this wasn't too long winded!!
Posted by Samarendra G
High Blood Pressure is the ultimate result of our erratics lifestyle, food intake and stressful life. In general, the more cholesterol and saturated fat we eat, the higher will be our blood cholesterol level and our BP. High blood cholesterol levels & high BP increase the risk of coronary heart disease.
We know that the arteries that supply the heart with blood can become progressively clogged over time with cholesterols & other deposits. When this blockages become severe, the heart does not receive enough blood and it becomes starved for oxygen carried in the blood. If this process is brief, the result is chest pain (Angina); if prolonged, the part of the heart not receiving enough blood actually dies & turns into scar tissue. This is a heart attack. We may survive if this scar tissue is small but in case of large part of the heart dies, then the chances of surviving is negative.
Similarly blockages in any artery that leads to the brain can cause a stoke, in which, part of the brain dies from lack of blood flow.
Therefore, blockages in the coronary arteries lead to chest pain, heart attack and blockages in the the brain's arteries lead to strokes or heart failure. Almost in all cases malfunctioning of our kidney starts along with all heart disease unless we take additional care to avoid it.
Orignal From: Kidney Disease: Why does high blood pressure cause people to have a heart attack, stroke, heart failure and kidney disease ?
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