Why is hypertension hard on the heart? -

Because high blood pressure over time can make the heart muscles thicker, which means that the heart has to work harder to pump blood through the vessels. Untreated hypertension can cause heart disease because your heart is working harder than it s supposed to.

Hypertension is the quot;Pressurequot; with which your Heart Pumps Blood in Arteries. Heart is a muscle and like all muscles needs oxygen. The coronary arteries supply oxygenated blood to your heart. When your Heart keeps pumping blood at quot;High Pressurequot; into Coronary arteries, the Lining on the Wall of Coronary Arteries gets damaged due to being Hit constantly at High Pressure.Cholesterol starts depositing at this quot;Dentquot; where the arterial wall has got damaged. Artery begins to narrow with Fatty Plaque. This further increase Blood Pressure which causes more damage to arteries. It is a vicious circle. If a Blood Clot gets stuck in the Narrowed Artery, one has a MI or Heart Attack. The Heart stops receiving oxygen and it s cells die. Further, High Blood Pressure means your Heart has to work more. It is not able to relax. Constant work increases the Wall Thickness of Left Ventricle. This is known as Left Ventricle Hypertrophy (LVH). The Cavity of Left Ventricle is Reduced in size and heart is able to pump less and less blood. This means that it has to again work harder. This is again a vicious circle and the patient ultimately dies of heart failure or cardiomyopathy.

The heart has to squeeze harder to try to push the blood out to the body. So it tires more. Then since it is squeezing so hard, it can damage the arteries directly by over stretching them. Blood may slow in overly wide areas, and fats may slow and settle causing obstructions. And there s more, but I am not sure what it is.