By: Thomas Pickering, MD, DPhil, FRCP, Director of Integrative and Behavioral Cardiology Program
of the Cardiovascular Institute at Mount Sinai School of Medicine, New York.

Coarctation of the aorta is a rare cause of hypertension which starts in childhood. Coarctation means a narrowing of a blood vessel, and in this case the narrowing is located in the aorta (the main artery leaving the heart) just after the arteries to the arms branch off. The narrowing impedes the flow of blood to the lower body, resulting in high pressure in the arms, and low pressure in the legs. The treatment is a surgical operation to relieve the narrowing, which usually results in a permanent cure of the hypertension.