Posted by Dr Michelle Wright
It’s Health Matters time on WRS, Dr Michelle Wright with you for your weekly look at all things medical.
When did you last get your blood pressure measured? And what is it actually measuring?
We all know that the heart pumps blood around the body to all of the cells and vital organs.
It has a powerful muscle wall and each time the heart beats (or the heart muscle contracts), blood is pumped out into the artery blood vessels. These vessels carry blood away from the heart and around the body.
What is blood pressure, and what do the numbers mean?
Blood pressure is a measure of the force of the blood pushing against the walls of the artery blood vessels as it’s pumped by the heart. It’s measured in millimetres of mercury.
You may have noticed that there are two numbers when you get your blood pressure checked. One is written above the other.
The upper number is called the systolic blood pressure. This is the highest pressure that’s reached inside the blood vessels when the heart contracts and pushes blood out.
The lower number is called the diastolic blood pressure. This is the lowest pressure inside the blood vessels in between heart beats when the heart muscle is relaxing as the heart is filling up with blood again.
The World Health Organisation defines ‘normal’ blood pressure as a systolic blood pressure of 120 mm of mercury (so a top reading of 120) and a diastolic blood pressure of 80 mm of mercury (so a bottom reading of 80).
High blood pressure (or hypertension) is when you have a systolic blood pressure of 140 or above. And/or a diastolic blood pressure of 90 or above.
You can have isolated systolic hypertension (when it’s just the top reading that’s high) or isolated diastolic hypertension (when it’s just the bottom reading that’s high), or they can both be high.
Why is high blood pressure a problem?
BUT we don’t say that someone has high blood pressure just on one raised blood pressure reading. The readings need to be persistently high.
The problem is that the higher the pressure in our blood vessels, the harder the heart needs to work to pump blood out and around the body. High blood pressure is a risk factor for a number of diseases. These include heart attacks, strokes, heart failure, kidney damage, and eyesight problems.
Can you have high blood pressure without knowing it?
Most of the time, people with high blood pressure don’t know they have it. They don’t have any symptoms. So this means that often, there’s no way of knowing that you have it unless you get your blood pressure checked.
Occasionally high blood pressure can cause symptoms. These can be headache, shortness of breath, dizziness, nosebleeds, and shortness of breath.
If high blood pressure is detected and treated, then you can reduce your chance of developing the complications of high blood pressure that I mentioned.
Hopefully this will give you the motivation to get yours checked!
Catch this podcast and others in the series at worldradio.ch/healthmatters.
