Why Is High Blood Pressure So Bad?
A. Everyone has high blood pressure some of the time, and it only causes a problem when it stays high for long periods. Even then, there are many people who live normal lives with high blood pressure, and never know it. Unfortunately, not all are so lucky, and the reason why doctors are concerned about high blood pressure is that it increases the risk of a number of serious events, chiefly strokes and heart attacks. Even if these do occur, however, it may be only after ten or twenty years of the pressure being high. The damage caused by high blood pressure is of three general sorts. The first is the one everyone thinks of – bursting a blood vessel. While this is dramatic and disastrous when it happens, it’s actually the lesser of the three problems. It occurs most frequently in the blood vessels of the brain, where the smaller arteries may develop a weak spot, called an aneurysm. This is an area where the wall is thinner than normal and a bulge develops.
