Chronic hypertension natural history
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Hypertension Main page |
Editor-In-Chief: C. Michael Gibson, M.S., M.D. [1]; Assistant Editor-In-Chief: Taylor Palmieri
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Complications
While elevated blood pressure alone is not an illness, it often requires treatment due to its short- and long-term effects on many organs. There is an increased risk of:
- Cerebrovascular accident (CVAs or strokes)
- Myocardial infarction (heart attack)
- Hypertensive cardiomyopathy (heart failure due to chronically high blood pressure)
- Hypertensive retinopathy - damage to the retina
- Hypertensive nephropathy - chronic renal failure due to chronically high blood pressure
Prognosis
Hypertension cannot be completely cured .It can be well controlled under the normal limits if one tries to follow lifestyle preventive measures like exercising, eating a heart healthy diet, avoiding the different risk factors like high cholesterol salty diet, smoking alcohol intake,stress.Besides that medications are given as mentioned above.But if not well-controlled it can lead to various complications as are described below.So it is always important to maintain a healthy diet and active lifestyle.<refhttp://www.americanheart.org/</ref>