According to its clinical manifestations, this disease fails 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 middle-aged 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.