Pulmonary Arterial Hypertension Article

Why is high blood pressure a problem if it causes no symptoms

If you have high blood pressure, over the years it may damage the arteries and put a strain on your heart. In general, the higher your blood pressure, the greater your health risk.

Therefore, high blood pressure is a 'risk factor' for developing heart disease (angina, heart attacks, heart failure), stroke, dementia, and kidney damage sometime in the future. Other risk factors which also increase the risk of developing these conditions are:

smoking
lack of exercise
an unhealthy diet
excess alcohol
obesity
high cholesterol level
a strong family history of heart disease or stroke
being male
ethnic group (eg. Afro-Caribbeans and South Asians in the UK have an increased risk.)
diabetes

Note: some risk factors are more 'risky' than others. For example, smoking or high blood pressure cause a greater risk to health than an unhealthy diet. Also, risk factors interact. So, if you have two or more risk factors, your health risk is much more increased than if you just had one. For example, a middle aged male smoker who takes no exercise and has high blood pressure has quite a high risk of developing heart disease before the age of 60.

Therefore, the benefit of lowering a high blood pressure is a reduced risk of serious illness. For example, it is estimated that reducing a high diastolic blood pressure by 6 mmHg reduces your relative risk of having a stroke in the future by about 35-40%, and reduces your relative risk of developing heart disease by about 20-25%. Larger reductions in blood pressure provide greater benefits. (See leaflet called 'Absolute Versus Relative Risk' for an explanation of relative risk.)