General Description
Hypertension, also known as essential hypertension, is clinical syndrome marked by elevated arterial pressure in the systematic circulation. It is an independent disease manifested mainly as the elevation of the blood pressure with unidentified cause.
Hypertension is the most common cardiovascular disease with approximately 100 million of hypertensive patients in China. It may lead to severe complication of the heart, brain and kidneys and it is one of the risk factors for stroke, coronary heart disease and renal insufficiency. Hypertension can be classified into benign hypertension and accelerated hypertension according to the urgency and the duration and the latter is also known as malignant hypertension with unfavorable prognosis.
According to its clinical manifestations, this disease falls into the categories of "xuan yun" (vertigo), "tou tong" (headache), "gan yang" (liver yang) and "gan feng" (liver wind) in TCM. The causes of hypertension are mainly emotional disorders, improper diet, prolonged illness and overstrain. Its pathogenesis includes deficiency of liver yin and kidney yin or deficiency of yin and yang, hyperactivity of liver yang, accumulation of turbid phlegm and obstruction of collaterals by blood stasis. In female patients it is related to disorders of conception and thoroughfare vessels. The location of the disease is at the liver, kidney and heart, with incoordination between yin and yang as the principal aspect and wind, fire, phlegm or stasis as the secondary aspect. Pathogenically, it is mainly a case of principal deficiency and secondary excess, deficiency with concomitant excess. For the young, the middleaged and new patients, their cases are mostly attributed to excess syndrome; and for the old and prolonged patients, their cases chiefly attributed to principal deficiency and secondary excess.
