Damage to the heart
High blood pressure can cause many heart conditions, including:
- Coronary artery disease. High blood pressure can narrow and damage the arteries that supply blood to the heart. This damage is known as coronary artery disease. Too little blood flow to the heart can lead to chest pain, called angina. It can lead to irregular heart rhythms, called arrhythmias. Or it can lead to a heart attack.
- Heart failure. High blood pressure strains the heart. Over time, this can cause the heart muscle to weaken or become stiff and not work as well as it should. The overwhelmed heart slowly starts to fail.
- Enlarged left heart. High blood pressure forces the heart to work harder to pump blood to the rest of the body. This causes the lower left heart chamber, called the left ventricle, to thicken and to enlarge. A thickened and enlarged left ventricle raises the risk of heart attack and heart failure. It also increases the risk of death when the heart suddenly stops beating, called sudden cardiac death.
- Metabolic syndrome. High blood pressure raises the risk of metabolic syndrome. This syndrome is a cluster of health conditions that can lead to can lead to heart disease, stroke and diabetes. The health conditions that make up metabolic syndrome are high blood pressure, high blood sugar, high levels of blood fats called triglycerides, low levels of HDL cholesterol, which is the "good" cholesterol, and too much body fat around the waist.