Your heart is a muscular organ located behind the breastbone (sternum) in the middle of your chest. Four chambers make up the heart – two on the left side and two on the right. The two upper chambers are the atria. The two lower chambers are the ventricles. The right side of the heart receives deoxygenated blood and sends it to the lungs where the blood picks up oxygen. The left side of the heart receives the oxygen-rich blood from the lungs and pumps it to the rest of the body.

How hypertension (high blood pressure) affects your heart

Over time, high blood pressure can cause many problems for your heart, including:

  • Coronary artery disease. Hypertension can cause damage to your arteries, making them lose their elasticity and become narrow. When your arteries become narrowed and damaged by high blood pressure, they have trouble supplying blood to the heart. Too little blood flowing to the heart can lead to chest pain (angina), abnormal heart rhythms (arrhythmias), or a heart attack.
  • Enlarged left heart. High blood pressure forces the heart to work harder to pump blood to the rest of the body. This causes the muscle of the lower left heart chamber (left ventricle) to thicken increasing the risk of heart attack and heart failure.
  • Heart failure. Over time, high blood pressure causes strain on the heart. This causes the heart muscle to become weak and work less efficiently. Eventually, the overwhelmed heart may begin to fail.
  • Heart attack and stroke. High blood pressure can cause fatty substances (plaque) to stick to the inside of the walls of your blood vessels. This can lead to severe narrowing of the arteries, causing atherosclerosis. Pieces of plaque can eventually break off from your artery be carried to your heart or brain leading to heart attack or stroke.

How to manage hypertension

Implementing lifestyle changes is the first step you should take. Examples of this include exercising more often, reducing salt intake in your diet, quitting smoking, reducing your alcohol consumption, and losing weight (if necessary). Regularly checking your blood pressure at home and recording your results in the Dario App will also help alert you and your physician to changes in your blood pressure and help determine whether your treatment plan is working.

https://www.cdc.gov/blood pressure/about.htm .

https://www.webmd.com/hypertension-high-blood-pressure/guide/blood-pressure-causes

https://www.fda.gov/drugs/special-features/high-blood-pressure-understanding-silent-killer

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