Blood Pressure - Understanding Blood Pressure
BP Optimizer
In other words, if your blood pressure is normally around 120/80 and rises to 140/90 your risk of heart problems is about the same as that of someone whose blood pressure increases from 140/90 to 160/90. It also means that if your blood pressure is a steady 160/90 and shows no sign of rising, it is not a sign of impending heart disease without other risk factors involved.
Myth 2: "Normal", healthy blood pressure is in the range of 120/70. Pressure above 130/80 is either high blood pressure or "pre-hypertension".
What is normal? For a long time the medical standard for high blood pressure was considered 140/90 and this was further moderated by age. But suddenly the standard was changed. Now some doctors call even
130/80 "high blood pressure" and many others consider it "pre-hypertension". New medications to treat "pre-hypertension" are even underway!
The fact is that blood pressure varies widely among healthy people and usually increases with age. Many things can increase blood pressure including over-the-counter and prescription medications, stress and over-indulgence in alcohol.
Add to this the fact that blood pressure varies, sometimes significantly, at different times of the day. Then there's the notorious white-coat syndrome whereby the stress of a doctor's visit shows up as high blood pressure while readings taken relaxing at home can be "normal".
These examples all go to show that just getting an accurate reading can be difficult enough, let alone setting normal and abnormal levels for a wide range of different people.
Myth 3. If you are hypertensive you must severely restrict or eliminate salt (or sodium) from your diet.
Not true. Salt is unfairly blamed for causing high blood pressure. Salt, or sodium, is not the culprit. It's an imbalance of sodium, magnesium and potassium in our diet that knocks our blood chemistry out of kilter and thus contributes to hypertension.
