Before we talk about Hypertension, we need to look at the normal circulation and normal blood pressure.

And the circulation consists of a pump, the heart which is pumping blood through a series of pipes the arteries, delivering oxygen and nutrients to the tissues such as the kidneys and the brain.

And the second series of pipes the veins takes blood back to the heart and the lungs completing the circulation.

Now here we have a series of small arteries, red blood cells and white blood cells flowing through.

And a critical layer of lining cells we call the endothelium which separates the blood from the other aspects of the blood vessel wall.

And importantly also are the muscle cells in the wall of the artery giving the vessel its elasticity…….

Now when we measure blood pressure, we measure blood pressure in arteries and we measure two numbers.

The higher number is the systolic pressure which is the highest pressure generated when the heart contracts.

And the lower pressure or the diastolic pressure which is the residual pressure in the circulation at the end of cardiac…….

Patients often asks us how does blood pressure harm you.

Well here is the blood vessel.

And the crucial initial step is the high blood pressure imposes stresses and strains on this endothelial lining cell which becomes fractionated and damaged does the consequences…….

Below the endothelium vessel lining, these yellow blobs.

That is LDL cholesterol.

That is the bad stuff.

And that is normally as whistling in and out of the endothelium if the cholesterol is low enough.

But under certain circumstances it gets trapped underneath.

 And as it does so. these big white and blue blobs these are migrating white cells and come through the damaged lining and they take up…….

Now the bad fat in your body is the abdominal fat which we call the visceral fat.

Because the cells in this fat produce hormones and chemical substances that get into the blood stream and cause damage to the blood vessel wall.

That is shown as the green seeds here…….

The fatty deposits begin to grow and grow and eventually impinge upon the blood stream.

Now in initial stages this fatty plaque is incased in a muscle layer which protects it.

But at some stage the cells begin to dissolve.

They produce chemical substances that destroy the plaque.

And the contents of the plaque are extruded into the blood stream, causing a clot.

And it is that clot which causes the eventual heart attack if it occurs in the coronary vessels or stroke if it occurs in the brain.

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