How bad can a little high blood pressure be? It turns out that it would be worse than we thought.
Fifty years ago, the rule of thumb for a healthy systolic blood pressure (the top number of a blood pressure reading [see "blood pressure basics"]) was 100 plus your age. Today is a healthy blood pressure under 120/80 blood pressure (what call doctors high blood pressure) is any pressure over 140/90. In spring 2003, appointed a group of Experts created by the national institutes of health a new category - Prehypertension. It includes the 25% of Americans have in the grey zone between normal blood pressure and high blood pressure, systolic blood pressure between 121 and 139 or diastolic pressure between 81 and 89.
Some doctors and experts sneered this new definition is "Disease mongering." Published a study in the April issue of the journal Neurology shows that we prehypertension should be taken seriously.
Blood pressure basics
When the heart contracts, which increases the pressure in the arteries - is the systolic pressure, usually written as the first number of a blood pressure reading. If the heart between beats relaxed himself, the pressure - this is the diastolic pressure. Ideal blood pressure is 120/80.
Researchers examined the results of 19 high-quality studies on links between Prehypertension and stroke from Southern Medical University in Guangzhou, China. The studies contain more than three-quarters of a million people, whose health and well-being followed for 36 years. The researchers broke the participants into two groups:
- Deep Prehypertension: blood pressure between 120 / 80 and 129/84
- Advanced Prehypertension: blood pressure between 130 / 85 and 139/89
People with high-range Prehypertension had a 95% higher risk of stroke compared to people with blood pressure less than 120/80. In the depths had a 44% greater risk of stroke.
Changes in lifestyle to reduce health risks
The size of the study and the length of the follow-up provide the results credible. They do not signify that we should be on a disease to increase Prehypertension. But they signal that we need to take it seriously.
How serious? So far there is no evidence that people with Prehypertension benefit from medicines. Blood pressure drugs lower blood pressure, but they can cause also harmful side effects. Benefits and risks seem mutually in the prehypertension range exclude.
Instead, lifestyle changes are the way for Prehypertension. Here are some changes that can lower blood pressure:
- If you smoke, quit
- Strive to maintain a healthy weight.
- Stay physically active, throughout the day as much as you can.Get at least 30 minutes of moderate intensity exercise most days of the week.
- Make every meal half fruit and vegetables. Potatoes do not count as vegetables.
- The other half should whole grain healthy protein and carbohydrates.
- Cut back on the amount of salt and sodium, take. A large part of the salt and sodium we consume comes from packaged foods, so check labels.
- Drinking water instead of sugary drinks.
- If you drink alcohol, you keep it moderate. This is not more than an alcoholic drink per day for women, no more than two per day for men.
These changes help beat Prehypertension. Even better, that they almost certainly lower your risk, a stroke or heart attack or congestive heart failure, diabetes, kidney disease and some cancers develop.
