5 things to know about blood pressure before it's a problem Michael Merschel, American Heart Association News May 12, 2021 FacebookTwitterEmail Blood pressure is more than just numbers your doctor writes on a chart. To explain it, Dr. Shawna Nesbitt, medical director of the Hypertension Clinic at Parkland Hospital in Dallas, talks about plumbing. Think of blood vessels as pipes in a house, she said. Those pipes feed blood to the whole body. If the pressure in them gets too high, it can damage the pipes or whatever they connect to – such as the heart, brain or kidneys. "Controlling it doesn't just matter to one of those organs. It matters to all of those organs," said Nesbitt, also a professor of medicine and associate dean of student diversity and inclusion at UT Southwestern Medical Center.