Hypertensive Heart Disease: How Can High Blood Pressure Lead To Heart Failure?

Hypertensive heart disease is a medical condition that affects a person’s heart, as a result of elevated blood pressure. The heart is not the only organ which can be permanently damaged by hypertension, as this also affects the kidneys, the brain, or the eyes.

Hypertensive heart disease classification

When the human heart is forced to function with an abnormal rate of blood pressure, it can develop different kind of disorders, some of them causing permanent heart damage. The conditions can be varied, depending on how the functions are affected by hypertension:

• There are blood vessels which are responsible with transporting blood to your heart. When hypertension strikes, it often means that the arteries become narrower, causing your blood to flow slower through them, but at a higher pressure. In medical terms, this condition is known as coronary heart disease, and it causes the heart to function improperly. Therefore, your other organs will not receive the blood supply they need in order to stay healthy. There are also cases where blood clots prevent blood from flowing normally through the arteries. This cuts the heart’s blood supply, and puts the person at risk of a heart attack.
• Hypertension holds down the blood pumping process. When the heart has to overwork in order to pump blood, its muscles will grow, causing it to function harder. When the left ventricle (which is the heart chamber most responsible with pumping blood) experiences these changes, the result is left ventricular hypertrophy. Coronary heart disease can lead to left ventricular hypertrophy, but also the other way around. The former puts a lot of strain on your heart, causing it to work harder, while the latter makes your heart larger, causing the coronary arteries to compress.

Complications of hypertensive heart disease

Both left ventricular hypertrophy and coronary heart disease can lead to a series of complications, such as:

• Arrhythmia, which is a condition that causes abnormal heart beating.
• Heart failure, which means that the heart is no longer able to ensure enough blood for the rest of the body.
• Heart attacks, caused by interruptions in the blood flow. This, in turn, causes the heart muscles to die because they are not receiving enough oxygen.
• Ischemic heart disease, which is also caused by a lack of oxygen to the heart.
• Sudden cardiac arrest, when the heart stops beating, and you lose consciousness and breath.

Symptoms of hypertensive heart disease

As with all other problems that are caused by hypertension, you may not experience any symptoms until it’s too late. However, those who do have symptoms will normally experience swelling in of the ankles or legs, loss of appetite, a persistent cough, pain in different upper parts of the body, shortness of breath, pressure in the chest area, or chest pain.

Diagnosis: How is hypertensive heart disease diagnosed?

Physical exams can determine if a person suffers from hypertensive heart disease. Such tests include:

• Coronary angiography, which can show if there is regular blood circulation in the coronary arteries. This test is invasive, and implies the doctor inserting a catheter to reach the heart.
• Electrocardiograms are focused on determining electrical activity in the heart. The test is performed by attaching patches to a person’s arms, legs, and chest. Then, the doctor will monitor the aforementioned activity on a monitor, to determine any irregularities.
• Echocardiograms use ultrasounds to provide doctors with a picture of the heart.
• An exercise stress test is meant to determine if physical activity affects the heart in any way. The patient is required to perform certain exercises, while the doctor monitors their heart activity.
• A nuclear stress test requires both rest and physical exercise, while the doctor examines heart blood flow in the process.

Treatment: How is hypertensive heart disease managed?

The doctor will be the one to decide which is the best approach, but the most commonly-prescribed meds for a hypertensive heart disease include aspirin (meant to prevent blood clot formation), ACE inhibitors and calcium channel blockers (which are meant to lower blood pressure), nitrates (to help with chest pain), statins (to lower high levels of cholesterol), or diuretics.

People who have a very advanced form of hypertensive heart disease may require either surgical interventions, or a device implant:

• Pacemakers are devices which can help regulate the rate of your heart. This is a battery-powered device which is implanted to your heart through a surgical procedure. With the help of electrical stimulation, the pacemaker will stimulate the heart’s muscles, causing them to contract and work closer to normal.
• A cardioverter-defibrillator will help with life-threatening cardiac arrhythmias.
• As for surgery, those who have hypertensive heart disease can be subjected to a coronary artery bypass graft procedure. This implies treating coronary arteries that are blocked, and is something that doctors turn to in case of serious coronary heart disease.
• In some cases, a person suffers so much heart damage, they may need a heart transplant in order to survive.

Conclusion

In order to recover from hypertensive heart disease, lifestyle changes are also required. However, there is no baseline for recovery, as it depends on the severity and the exact type of heart condition. If the condition is too advanced, there are chances of neither surgery nor medication being efficient in treating it.