Why Maintaining Healthy Blood Pressure Is Crucial

As you may or may not already know, medical professionals and institutions have a very diverse range of health indicators that they use to measure the degree of health that a person has, one of this indicators for example is the resting heart rate, a normal resting heart rate for an adult ranges between 60 – 100 beats per minute and a lower or higher number of beats per minute could be a very clear indicator of a circulation problem, a vessel complication or some other more serious heart conditions. Another indicator that doctors and health professionals over the world use to measure overall health is blood pressure.

What is Blood Pressure?

Blood pressure refers to the amount of force at which the heart pumps out blood to the rest of the body. Blood pressure levels are usually expressed in millimeters of mercury (mmHg) in which the systolic pressure is written first, followed by the diastolic pressure. And while we understand that these terms might sound confusing at first, it is actually very easy to understand and to remember what these terms mean. First off, we have the systolic blood pressure, which is the amount of force that the heart uses to pump out blood when fully contracted (remember that the heart is a muscle). On the other hand we have the diastolic blood pressure which is the amount of force at which the blood is pumped out to the body when the heart is resting (between palpitations). Now that we know all of this, we can easily understand blood pressure readings; for example a reading of 135 systolic and a reading of 90 diastolic would be written as 135/90 and expressed as “135 over 90 millimeters of mercury”.

But why are all of these numbers so important and why do doctors place such a huge emphasis on maintaining healthy blood pressure levels? The first reason for this is because high blood pressure is a risk factor for some very dangerous heart conditions that can lead to death if left untreated. Some of these conditions include strokes, heart attacks, aneurysms and blood clots. The dangerous conditions associated with high blood pressure are not limited to conditions that affect the heart, as other organs such as the kidneys, the eyes, the liver and the blood vessels can be severely affected in those patients that suffer from high blood pressure and decide to ignore it.

Symptoms of High Blood Pressure

Which leads into our second reason as to why doctors care so much about high blood pressure; high blood pressure usually has no symptoms so it is almost impossible to detect it without doing a screening. In fact, blood pressure tends to sneak up on people so much that it has been dubbed “the silent killer” by many experts in the medical field due to the fact that by the time most people realize they are suffering from high blood pressure it is very likely that other conditions might have developed for living with constantly elevated blood pressure levels. However, it is never too late to take action and a good diet low in sodium, combined with a natural blood pressure supplement like PD120 as well as increased levels of physical activity can make a huge difference when it comes to helping maintain healthy blood pressure levels.

And while doctors all around make it very clear that high blood pressure can be deadly, sometimes patients don’t have a general idea of what high blood pressure is. In general terms, a reading of 120/80 is considered to be the threshold for healthy blood pressure levels. Anything above that and below 139/89 is considered prehypertension and after that we have the point where things could turn ugly quickly. This is exactly the reason why patients living with blood pressure levels above 139/89 are considered at risk for heart disease, strokes and other complications. As of today, more than 65 million Americans are currently struggling with high blood pressure levels but unfortunately less than half of that number have their blood pressure under control, according to statistics provided to this website by the CDC.

If you think you might be suffering from high blood pressure, it would be a good idea to get a home monitor so that you can measure your blood pressure levels daily or even several times throughout the day. Remember that making significant lifestyle changes can make the difference between life and death, and given the availability of these measuring devices, there really is no excuse.