Blood pressure is the pressure generated by the blood flow in the arteries, which, in layman’s terms, is the same as the pressure of the blood flow in a water pipe called water pressure. “Hypertension is an abnormally high pressure generated by the blood flow in the arteries of the body, which reaches or exceeds a certain standard in a quiet state. Currently, the blood pressure at the brachial artery of the upper extremity in a sitting position is 140/90 mmHg as the diagnostic criterion for hypertension. The reason why this value is taken as the criterion is that according to the analysis of a large number of clinical data, it is found that once the blood pressure exceeds this value, it may bring about many cardiovascular and cerebrovascular diseases, such as stroke, coronary heart disease, impaired kidney function, etc. Hypertension is divided into secondary hypertension and primary hypertension. The former accounts for only a small percentage, less than 5%, mostly caused by kidney disease such as nephritis, renal artery disease such as stenosis, adrenal gland disease such as hyperplasia or tumors, etc. This type of hypertension is called “secondary” because its elevated blood pressure is only a manifestation of the disease, as long as the original disease is removed, blood pressure can return to normal. Primary hypertension accounts for the majority of cases, about 95%, and is caused by a combination of factors, including genetic factors, dietary factors (such as a high-salt diet), mental factors (such as long-term high stress), lack of exercise, smoking, overweight, etc. Most of these cases cannot be cured. What are the risks associated with hypertension? What are the main dangers to the body? Long-term elevated blood pressure will make the body’s whole body blood vessels harden and the vessel walls become diseased, which will cause the possibility of insufficient blood supply and rupture of various important organs, such as cerebral hemorrhage, myocardial infarction, glomerulosclerosis, aortic coarctation aneurysm, etc. At the same time, prolonged high blood pressure increases the amount of work done by the heart when ejecting blood, which will make the heart thicken and enlarge until failure. Therefore, some statistics show that if hypertension is not treated, 50% of people may die from coronary heart disease or heart failure, 33% may die from stroke, 10-15% may die from uremia, and some may die from aortic coarctation (which is the tearing of the middle layer of the aortic vessel wall to produce hematoma), sudden death, etc. In addition to this, there is the possibility of causing bleeding from the fundus of the eye, nasal bleeding, dementia, etc. Thus, hypertension is an important risk factor that threatens human life. However, before the emergence of these serious complications, hypertension often does not cause obvious discomfort and does not affect daily life, most people can “eat, sleep and work”, so it is easy to be ignored, so it can be called a “gentle killer”. According to epidemiological survey estimates, the prevalence of hypertension in China is very high, close to 1/5, the total number of more than 200 million. Each year, more than 1.5 million people are disabled due to strokes caused by hypertension; at least half of the annual deaths due to cardiovascular disease are related to hypertension.However, in contrast to these worryingly large numbers, less than 1/3 of our nation’s hypertensive population is aware of their blood pressure, less than 1/4 of them are receiving blood pressure lowering treatment, and only about 6% are actually controlling their blood pressure at normal levels. This is what we often call the “three highs and three lows” of hypertension, that is, high incidence, high death rate, high disability rate, low awareness rate, low treatment rate, low control rate. The reason is that high blood pressure rarely causes obvious discomfort, and many people with high blood pressure do not go for checkups, so they do not even know they have high blood pressure. At the same time, people who already know they have high blood pressure do not pay attention to treatment because they do not feel obvious discomfort; or although they are receiving antihypertensive treatment, they are irregular and their blood pressure is not controlled to normal. This leads to many hypertensive patients in our country often actively seeking medical attention only when serious complications like cerebral hemorrhage, myocardial infarction or even aortic coarctation occur, but very unfortunately, by this time, much of the damage caused is already irreversible. This is the most frightening part of hypertension. Therefore, in order to avoid the dangers of hypertension, all people over the age of 30 should have their blood pressure measured 1-2 times a year, and should visit a cardiovascular physician for further examination and consultation as soon as they find that their blood pressure is high enough to be above 140/100 mmHg, which means that they are suspected of having hypertension. For those who have been diagnosed with hypertension, they should insist on adjusting their life behavior and insist on taking blood pressure lowering medication to lower their blood pressure steadily to below 140/90 good mmHg. In this way, we can achieve early detection of hypertension and early control of hypertension, thus reducing the harm of hypertension.