Risk of High Blood Pressure

High blood pressure is a serious condition.

Your arteries are normally stretchy, so they can cope with your blood pressure going up and down. But with high blood pressure, your arteries lose their stretchiness, becoming stiff or narrow.

This narrowing makes it easier for fatty material (atheroma) to build up. This narrowing and damage to the arteries lining your heart or brain could trigger a life-threatening heart attack or stroke.

If left untreated, high blood pressure can also lead to complications such as:

• kidney failure
• heart failure
• problems with your sight
• vascular dementia.