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 .... Or put another way, what’s the level of blood pressure at which your doctor will gravely say to you, “George (even if your name is Fred because doctors often don’t read charts carefully), this blood pressure of yours is just too high but below this it would be normal. You need drugs. Here’s a free sample.
.... Goodbye. Next.”
.... OK? What’s your answer?
.... Now, I’m clearly deaf and blind to what you muttered or wrote, but I’m willing to bet that most of you answered “140/90” as the level at which you were told doctors differentiate between “normal” and |
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.... So you think you understand blood pressure, eh?
.... OK, so taking a page from my favourite literary character, Max Byalistock, the producer in the funniest play ever written, Mel Brooks’s “The Producers”, I suggest we play a game called “the Quizmaster and the Pupil” (unlike Max’s schemes, though, this one is not a ruse to pry money from the hands of besotted “little old ladies”, although if you want to send me a few bucks, hey! I won’t complain).
.... Anyway, the point of my game is that like so many other conditions in which ideas and theories have changed dramatically the last few years, (strokes, diabetes, migraines, asthma, GERD, you name it), when it comes to high blood pressure (what doctors call “hypertension”) what your doctor told you with great assurance just a few years ago is probably no longer considered true today.
.... So, now that I’ve enticed you with that come-on, let’s get into “The Quizmaster and the Pupil”. I’ll be the quizmaster (well, hey! I’m never in charge of anything at home, so I have to grab one of the few chances I get to be boss), and as quizmaster, there’s only one question I have for you. If you get it right, you win (the prize is just a tip of my coveted Manchester United ball cap, but hey! when’s the last time you won anything?). Pretty simple, eh.
.... So, here’s your only question: what’s a normal blood pressure reading? |
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“high” blood pressure. Am I right? I thought so.
.... Well, here’s the twist, folks (surely you were expecting a twist): if you did answer that anything below 140/90 is “normal”, you lose because according to the latest mantra amongst medical experts, there is no universal “safe” or “normal” blood pressure level.
.... Instead, the experts say, the blood pressure level each of us should be aiming for varies according to the other risk factors we have (or, if we’re lucky, don’t have yet) for diabetes and cardiovascular disease.
That means that for the very many of us (most) who have one or more major risk factors for cardiovascular disease and diabetes (the same old, same old: being overweight, being sedentary, smoking, having a poor family history, abnormal cholesterol levels, and so on), instead of accepting that anything below 140/90 is OK and that only above 140/90 do we actually need to treat our “hypertension”, we should be aiming very hard to get our blood pressure down well below 140/90, to levels such as 130/80 and preferably even lower. In fact, everything between 120-139/80-89 is now a new “problem” called “prehypertension.
.... In other words, depending on how many risk factors you have for diabetes and heart disease and strokes, your “normal”, or better, your “preferred” blood pressure might be as low as 115/75, and anything above |
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