One of the consequences of the narrow arteries resulting from atherosclerosis is the decline in the amount of blood from the heart passing through the arteries to reach the other parts of the body. This leads to a condition referred to as high blood pressure characterized by fast circulation of blood in the body which is found to be responsible for causing trouble at the different parts of the body including the brain, kidney, heart, lungs, and the respiratory system
As with the respiratory system, the effects of the heart could either be directly or indirectly due to its impact and the effects of medicine taken for the high pressure respectively. As for the direct impact, the fast circulation of blood will give an extra task to the lungs of working faster in order to maintain the volume of oxygen present in the blood, if the lungs work continuously under such pressure and strain for long intervals, the results will be a weakened respiratory system (Ward et al, 2006).
The cause of this weakening is because the lungs have their own involuntary rate of contracting and expanding which on disturbance, results in the weakening of diaphragm muscles. The manifestation of this will be a feeling of pain in the chest and difficulty in breathing. If medicines are taken to improve the condition of high blood pressure, they also deteriorate the functioning of the respiratory system by lowering the blood pressure. With the lowered blood pressure, the rates at which the lungs contract and expand consequently get disturbed.
The rate of breathing is slowed down leading to low supply of oxygen to body cells. On the other hand, if blood and organs responsible for blood formation are affected, the result will be the blood diseases also referred to as hematological disorders. Under these blood diseases, the effects will be on blood production of blood and its components such as blood cells, hemoglobin, blood proteins and also the mechanism of coagulation. Coagulation involves the formation of blood clot. Consequently, in arterial thrombosis, the blood clot or thrombus form within an artery.
This thrombosis, because it affect the blood is regarded as one of the hematological disorder. The disorder is related to the cardiovascular system because it is a result of the rupture of atheroma. Besides, when the blood flow is disturbed, a condition called atrial fibrillation, arterial thrombosis will result. If the clot form then is transported along the blood vessels it is referred to as embolus and the resulting condition is called thromboembolism and has been obtained that in all the cases of patients not subjected to anti coagulant therapy, five percent will be struck by thromboembolism.
Arterial embolism has been discovered that it has the potential of embolism leading to arterial embolism which has been found to be the cause of infarction of the organs in the body. The manifestations of arterial thrombosis are varied depending on the part of the body where it affects. As for the solid organs such as spleen or kidney the thrombus will solidify therein to result in a limited supply of nutrients and blood to the area. This will result in gangrene formation. The thrombosis can also extend to the heart where it will be referred to as myocardial infarction.
Here, it mainly attack and block the coronary artery supplying the heart muscles with oxygenated blood. If this occlusion or blockage will not be treated earlier, the heart muscles will die. This condition is referred to as heart attack which is part of its manifestation. Another infarction of the arm or leg will cause pain in the thigh or swelling of the leg (Jacoby et al 2004). Besides the most feared effects of atherosclerosis on the respiratory system and hematological system, some impact of the high blood pressure extend into the kidney also with relatively tragic consequences.
With its crucial role of filtering out excess fluid and waste from the blood. This process of filtering blood occur a cross the walls of the blood vessels. Therefore it will require these vessels to be healthy. In a situation where someone is suffering from high blood pressure, the blood vessels can be injured resulting in several kidney diseases. These include kidney failure, kidney scarring and kidney aneurysm which are each characterized by different manifestations. in kidney failure, the accumulation of fluid and wastes result in kidney scarring, the scarring of glomeruli eventually lead to kidney failure.
On the other hand kidney artery aneurysm would be the most fatal and closely associated with the atherosclerosis. It involves the bulging in the wall of the blood vessel (Rosdahl et al 2007). When this bulging involves the renal artery leading to the kidney, it is referred to as kidney renal artery aneurysm. Consequently, atherosclerosis will normally make the artery wall weak and sometimes damages it. Subject to high blood pressure, a section of the weakened artery will be caused to enlarge and form a bulge called aneurysm.
This aneurysm will later rupture and result in fatal internal bleeding which is their main manifestation. References: Jacoby, D. B. and. Youngson, R. M. (2004). Encyclopedia of Family Health. Oxford University Press. Laragh, J. H. and Brenner, B. M. (1995). Hypertension: Pathophysiology, Diagnosis, and Management. Lippincott Williams & Wilkins. Rosdahl, C. B. and Kowalski, M. T. (2007). Textbook of basic nursing. Lippincott Williams & Wilkins. Ward, J. P. T. , Ward, J. and Wiener, C. M. (2006). The respiratory system at a glance. Wiley-Blackwell.