How Text Messages Can Help Support Healthy Blood Pressure
A recent study conducted by the Oxford University has found that that setting text message reminders can help patients with hypertension bring back their blood pressure levels within the acceptable threshold. The study, conducted with the aid for the South African University of Cape Town found tested over 1,000 adults suffering from hypertension in Cape Town by testing how they reacted to text message and text reminders. The actual text messages don’t actually lower blood pressure, instead the messages can help users remember when and how to take their blood pressure medication and supplements and prevent them from forgetting to take these extremely important pills.
Daily Blood Pressure Pills
When it comes to taking their blood pressure pills and blood pressure supplements, patients must remember that forgetting to take these pills can be fatal in the worst of cases due to the effects that high blood pressure has on the human body. In order to understand correctly why hypertension is so dangerous we first understand how the heart itself works. Think of the heart as a pump that sends oxygen-rich blood from the lungs and sends it to the different organs, muscles and bones to the body. This process is repeated over 100,000 per day on a small scale and the force with which the heart sends the blood to the rest of the body is measured using millimeters of mercury. When this reading goes over the widely accepted “normal” levels, the body must work at an accelerated rate in order to be able to meet the body’s demand for blood. This puts a lot of strain into the different organs and structures found in the human body, mainly the heart itself, the kidneys, the lungs and the arteries, this continued strain can lead to fatal organ failure and other terrible conditions that can quickly lead to death.
The Effects of Texting
Blood Pressure medication and blood pressure supplements play a huge role in improving the flow of pressure to the heart and other organs and forgetting to take even 1 pill can have serious consequences. This is the reason why the scientists who conducted this study determined that setting text message reminders can be an easy and quick way to make sure that patients who are currently taking blood pressure medication and natural alternatives like PD120, a natural supplement, do not forget to take them.
During the study conducted last year, the patients were assigned to one of three random groups of equal size, all of the patients in each group then received pamphlets containing written information about hypertension and healthy habits. The first group then received weekly messages at an established time and date reminding them about their medication and encouraging them to order refills for their hypertension medication and supplements. Extra messages were also sent to let patients once their pills were ready for pickup.
Patients in the second group also received similar text messages to their cellphones but were also able to add interactions with the messaging system by giving them the opportunity to change their appointments or to change the time at which they received the messages. The system also allowed patients to change the frequency with which they received the text messages to a certain degree. The point of having this second group during the experiments was to determine how willing users were when it came to interacting with an automated system.
Finally, the patients in the third group did not receive any messages. After a year, it was found that under standard care, all three groups were able to lower blood pressure levels. However, those patients who had received text messages, showed a greater drop in their blood pressure levels than those patients who did not receive any text messages at all. The study also found that those patients who had set up reminders were also more likely to have taken their medicine than those patients who did not and 80% less likely to forget to take their medication and supplements.
Hopefully this study and the information it provided can go a long ways towards improving the health of patients currently struggling with hypertension. Relatives and friends of these patients can also do their part by sending patients occasional text messages reminding them about their medication and healthy lifestyle tips that can improve health in the long term. However, patients should remember that ultimately their health depends on themselves and setting up reminders is only one of the ways in which they can regain healthy blood pressure. Most patients should also consider the benefits of having an ally like PD120 to help maintain healthy blood pressure levels. There are terrible conditioner associated with high blood pressure, the “silent killer”, that affects over 30% of the population nowadays.