Stroke: how high blood pressure can destroy the brain

Stroke younger: one in ten of those who are faced with this disaster - is less than 45 years. The main culprit - high blood pressure, for which we can not ignore.

Daniel Lackland, a professor of neurobiology of the Medical University of South Carolina (USA), told how as a high blood pressure can destroy the brain.

1. Pressure rises

What happens if a thin tube to a strong water pressure? That's right, under pressure, he will begin to stretch and swell. The same thing happens with your arteries when blood pressure rises above 140/90.

2. The image razryvchiki

As a result, tension on the inner layer of the arteries microscopic discontinuities are formed. The body tends to eliminate the damage, and on-site breaks appear "sores" - blood platelet, the forerunner of blood clots. Over time, their "being finished" molecules "bad" cholesterol, calcium and cellular debris.

3. The walls of the arteries dubeyut

The immune system sends to the site of the imminent catastrophe white blood cells, but they can not destroy plaque. Instead, they are formed from the so-called foam cells that provoke inflammation only. Elastic arteries harden in this place and cease to stretch with increasing pressure; pressure in turn becomes even higher.

4. What happens congestion

Under the blood pressure of a fragment of the resulting plaque breaks away from the artery wall and is carried away with the blood flow to the brain, which is stuck in a narrow blood vessels, blocking it completely. Oxygen does not enter the brain cells located downstream blood flow. It - ischemic stroke (hemorrhagic happens even when directly into the brain blood vessel is destroyed - but in general it has the same reasons).

5. Brain cells die

Without oxygen, brain cells die in a few minutes. Depending on the order in which parts of the brain was a trouble, and how many cells affected, the consequences can range from dizziness, spatial disorientation and a hell of a headache to paralysis, coma and death.