Over 80 percent of patients who suffer from high blood pressure do not necessarily know that their blood pressure is high as the symptoms are often confused with the more general headaches, the lack of fitness or the common cold. Over the years, high blood pressure has been known as the "silent killer" because the causes of high blood pressure are hard to pinpoint and trace. Millions of people are completely oblivious to the fact that they have been having high blood pressure for years and just leave it undetected and untreated. When this condition continues, it could cause severe damage to your internal vital organs, slowly leading to a fatal condition by which time it is too late to take any meaningful treatment. Therefore, it cannot be stressed enough the importance of having an annual medical check up to ensure your blood pressure is within a healthy range.

There is a correlation between high blood pressure and heart attacks, as well as a stroke. When the high blood pressure is left untreated, the risk of a heart attack or a stroke is significantly increased. As more research is done on identifying the causes of high blood pressure, one of the latest theories is based around the fact that it is the brain, not necessarily your heart that is causing the high blood pressure. Intrigued? In 2007, a team of British scientists discovered that a defect in a protein located in the brain of lab rats caused the area of the brain that is responsible for regulating blood pressure in the body to be blocked. This caused an elevated blood pressure in the lab rats. While we cannot discount the possibility that certain conditions or defects of the heart could contribute to increased blood pressure, it is interesting to see the latest scientific analysis that purport to show the brain could also cause blood pressure to rise.

Believe it or not bearing a child during pregnancy can also cause high blood pressure. This is one of the more known causes of high blood pressure, also known as hypertension. It has been proven in scientific studies that link pregnancy to the development of hypertension in about 1 out of every 10 pregnant ladies. Left unnoticed and untreated it could have devastating effects on the pregnancy and could also cause potential complications for the expecting mother. It is therefore very important to seek immediate medical attention from the doctor to deal with this hypertension of pregnancy. Unfortunately doctors are not able to prevent the unavoidable high blood pressure that a child can cause after they are born.

Another commonly known cause of high blood pressure is the dilating or narrowing of arteries surrounding your heart that can significantly affect a person's blood pressure. These conditions will need to be further tested to determine the exact problem and it is not uncommon this will result in surgery to correct the condition. Whatever the circumstances, it is vital that you treat high blood pressure very seriously and give it the attention it requires to avoid causing more damage to other internal organs.