What Would Be the Consequences of Taking Blood Pressure Medication for 30 Years?

As the saying goes, every medicine has its side effects. Long-term medication can burden the liver. For hypertension, a chronic disease, there is no cure in medicine currently. Therefore, patients need to take antihypertensive drugs for a long time or even lifelong to control blood pressure and prevent dangerous situations caused by elevated blood pressure. As a result, patients may take antihypertensive drugs for up to 30 years or even longer.

1. Genetic factors: Approximately 60% of hypertensive patients have a family history. It is currently believed to be caused by polygenic inheritance, with 30% to 50% of hypertensive patients having a genetic background.

2. Mental and environmental factors: Long-term mental stress, excitement, anxiety, noise or bad visual stimulation can also lead to hypertension.

3. Age factor: The incidence rate tends to increase with age, with a higher incidence rate after 40 years of age.

4. Lifestyle factors: Unreasonable dietary structure, such as excessive sodium intake, low potassium diet, excessive alcohol consumption, and excessive intake of saturated fatty acids can all lead to elevated blood pressure. Smoking can accelerate the process of atherosclerosis and is a risk factor for hypertension.

5. Medication effects: Medications such as contraceptives, hormones, anti-inflammatory analgesics can affect blood pressure.

6. Other diseases: Obesity, diabetes, sleep apnea with hypoventilation syndrome, thyroid diseases, renal artery stenosis, renal parenchymal damage, adrenal space-occupying lesions, pheochromocytoma, and other neuroendocrine tumors.

The symptoms of hypertension vary from person to person. In the early stages, there may be no symptoms or the symptoms may be subtle, commonly including dizziness, headache, tightness in the neck, fatigue, and palpitations. Blood pressure may rise only after exertion, mental stress, or emotional fluctuations and return to normal after rest. As the disease progresses and blood pressure rises significantly and persistently, various symptoms may gradually appear. This is known as chronic hypertension.

Common clinical symptoms of chronic hypertension include headache, dizziness, inattention, memory loss, numbness in the limbs, increased nocturia, palpitations, chest tightness, and fatigue. The symptoms of hypertension are somewhat related to the level of blood pressure, with most symptoms worsening after stress or exertion. Blood pressure can rapidly rise after morning activities, leading to morning hypertension and an increased risk of cardiovascular and cerebrovascular events in the morning.

When blood pressure suddenly rises to a certain level, symptoms such as severe headache, vomiting, palpitations, and vertigo may occur. In severe cases, there may be confusion, convulsions, which belong to acute hypertension and hypertensive crises. These conditions can lead to severe damage and lesions to the heart, brain, kidneys, and other organs within a short period of time, such as stroke, myocardial infarction, renal failure, etc. The severity of symptoms does not always correspond to the level of blood pressure elevation.