We know that high blood pressure negatively impacts your health – but what does high blood pressure do to your body?
High blood pressure (hypertension) is a significant factor in heart disease. In addition to your heart health, high blood pressure can subtly damage your body for years before you notice them.
Among some of the damage is disability, poor quality of life, and a fatal heart attack and stroke. To decrease the likelihood of developing hypertension, you can adopt healthy lifestyle habits like exercise and well-balanced diets.
Hypertension Emergencies
Since high blood pressure is generally a chronic condition that damages the body over the years, it may be easy to ignore certain symptoms. However, when blood pressure rises suddenly to certain levels, it may require immediate medical treatment.
During a hypertensive crisis, you may experience memory loss, chest pain, loss of kidney function, heart attack, and stroke. If you experience a hypertensive crisis (over 180/120 mm Hg), call 911 or head to the emergency room immediately.
What does high blood pressure do to your body?
Besides affecting your circulation and heart, hypertension can damage various parts of your body over the years. It can affect your arteries, brain, kidney, eyes, and even affect your sexual performance.
The following are the various ways in which hypertension can negatively impact your body.
Arterial Damage
Hypertension can damage the cells of your arteries’ inner lining, resulting in narrow and weak arteries. When blood moves through a weak artery, the constant pressure can even lead to the formation of an aneurysm.
Heart Damage
Since blood can’t circulate effectively, your heart won’t get the nutrients, blood, and oxygen it needs to function properly. High blood pressure can result in coronary artery disease, an enlarged left heart, and ultimately heart failure.
Brain Damage
In addition to affecting your heart, hypertension blocks the effective supply of blood to the brain. This restriction can lead to a transient ischemic attack, stroke, dementia, and mild cognitive impairment.
Kidney Damage
The main function of kidneys is to filter waste and excess fluid from your blood, which requires healthy blood vessels. Hypertension can damage these blood vessels and lead to kidney scarring and even kidney failure.
Eye Damage
Just about everything in our bodies need blood to function properly – including our eyes. By damaging the delicate blood vessels that supply this blood to our eyes, hypertension can cause nerve damage and harm the retina.
Sexual Dysfunction
Men with high blood pressure can experience erectile dysfunction due to the limited circulation. However, it’s not just men who are affected, as women can experience a decrease in sexual arousal and difficulty achieving orgasm.
Lowering Blood Pressure
Because high blood pressure can affect your body in various ways, it’s best to decrease the risk of developing it. You can exercise regularly and follow a healthy eating plan like the DASH diet to lower your blood pressure.
Moreover, you can add a circulation supplement to your daily routine like L-arginine Plus. It works by increasing nitric oxide production in the body, which relaxes blood vessels and improves circulation.
Try L-arginine Plus along with exercise and healthy eating if you want to avoid the damages caused by hypertension.