Hypertension is a worldwide health care burden that affects the structure and function of the macro- and microcirculation. Non-invasive vascular biomarkers are essential to timely diagnose end organ damage to improve cardiovascular (CV) risk stratification and medical decision making. The "Hypertension and retinal microvascular dysfunction" (HyperVasc) trial will investigate macro- and microvascular impairments in hypertensive patients and healthy controls to investigate hypertension-induced end organ damage by using gold-standard methods as well as newly developed and unique retinal microvascular biomarkers. Additionally, this trial will investigate the reversible effects of an eight weeks supervised and walking based high-intensity exercise intervention on blood pressure as well as macro- and microvascular health, compared to a control group with standard physical activity recommendations. Secondary outcomes will be cardiorespiratory fitness, physical activity, microalbuminuria, hypertensive retinopathy, and classical cardiovascular risk marker. The results of the HyperVasc trial will improve the understanding of hypertension-induced vascular impairments and will push the development of non-invasive vascular biomarker to screen end organ damage in general CV risk stratification.

Inclusion Criteria:

• Men and Women between 40 and 70 years of age
• hypertension (≥90 mmHg diastolic or ≥140 mmHg systolic BP during 24h monitoring or hypertensive medication) or normal blood pressure (≤85 mmHg diastolic and ≤130 mmHg systolic BP during 24h monitoring and no hypertensive medication).

Exclusion Criteria:

• Any cardiovascular (CV) medication (accept for hypertensive medication in the hypertensive group)
• history of CV, pulmonary, or chronic inflammatory disease
• active smoking status
• any chronic eye disease.