Health Quadrant

The term blood pressure refers to the pressure exerted by blood on the walls of blood vessels.

The pressure is measured relative to atmospheric pressure. If atmospheric pressure is 760 mm Hg and the pressure within the arteries is 860 mm Hg, the blood pressure is said to be 100 mm Hg, i.e., 100 units above atmospheric pressure. Incidentally, mm Hg stands for millimeters of mercury.

As you might imagine, the pressure varies within the blood vessels. The main arteries generally have higher pressure than smaller blood vessels.

Blood pressure is measured in the large arteries, most typically the brachial artery within the arm. Most monitors measure this pressure.

Couple of other terms you’ll hear are systolic and diastolic blood pressure. Systolic pressure means the peak pressure in the arteries during the heart’s pumping cycle and diastolic pressure is the lowest pressure in the cycle.

So what’s considered ‘normal’ blood pressure? Around 120 mm Hg systolic and 80 mm Hg diastolic. This is usually written as 120/80 mm Hg.

Normal ranges for blood pressure values are between 90 and 130 mm Hg systolic and between 50 and 90 mm Hg diastolic. If your reading is significantly above these normal ranges, you may have hypertension.

Remember from yesterday’s post that ‘normal’ blood pressure can be a bit of a myth and that blood pressure is actually a dynamic value that depends on many factors. See this post for a more detailed discussion.

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Did you know that normal blood pressure is more of a range than a fixed point?

That’s because there are many factors that can affect your blood pressure. Things like your mood, whether you just had a heavy meal, your rate of breathing, overall level of fitness, whether you exerted yourself physically, smoked, had alcohol and more. Even race, gender and of course age play a role.

What’s considered ‘normal’ blood pressure can vary with each of those factors. So what does this mean for you in practical terms?

For one thing, when you’re at the doctor’s office having your blood pressure taken, just let go and relax. If you are tense, even if you don’t show it outwardly, it can affect the blood pressure reading and potentially mislead your doctor.

Some doctors will ask you to sit in a quiet, comfortable room and relax before they measure your blood pressure. This is to alleviate the ‘white coat syndrome’, which affects more people than you realize.

To give you an idea, tests have shown that becoming somewhat tense can raise your pressure reading by a full 30mmHg. That’s a lot!

Unfortunately, tests have also shown that having blood pressure measured by a doctor (and to a lesser extent, by a nurse) is almost always higher than if measured away from hospital by someone who is not a doctor!

So relax, get accustomed to your surroundings and more often than not, your blood pressure reading will be lower and closer to what is acceptable for your age and other conditions.

Lots more stuff coming soon. Be right back!

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Hi and welcome to the HealthQuadrant.com blog!

I’ll be posting many useful tips, ideas and suggestions related to the four disease areas we cover — high blood pressure, Parkinson’s disease, Alzheimer’s disease and asthma.

Much of the initial posts will be about high blood pressure, but the others will follow soon. This blog is meant to supplement the content found on the main site and to provide updates. Writing for a blog means you are much less constrained than when creating web pages! Hmmm…maybe this whole site should be just a blog…but then there are some reasons why it is useful to have a regular site as well.

If you came directly to this blog, you can access the HealthQuadrant.com main page at the previous link.

Anyway, onto some basic facts on blood pressure.

Blood pressure can be caused by many different factors. Everything from whether you have just finished heavy exercise, to your emotional state, your level of fitness, how full you are at the moment, your breathing patterns (or difficulties you face in breathing), etc can have a direct and immediate impact on your blood pressure.

Smoking and alcohol consumption also have an affect on it.

Add to that a long list of medical conditions like headaches, bladder problems and more - all can contribute to changing your blood pressure levels.

As you can see, it may not be that easy to isolate the factors that cause high blood pressure. That is why close attention from a well-trained medical professional is indispensable.

More in the next post — stay tuned!