Several recent studies of importance for
nearly everyone with high blood pressure, and even for most of those who don’t have it – yet.
Reason I say “yet” is that HBP is
increasing faster than nearly any other condition around the world.
And no surprise why, of course: HBP is closely
related to excess weight and poor diet more sedentary lifestyle, which is
affecting a rapidly increasing population even in third world countries.
So, first, a study has shown that that
there may be a gender difference in how HBP affects us, that is, compared to
men, in this study, women were more likely to get complications from HBP –
strokes, heart attacks, and (the Yikes! one ) sudden death - at lower blood pressure levels than men.
More specifically, to significantly lower
their risk of complications from HBP, men needed to get to only 135/85 but
women needed to get to 120/80.
Why does this matter?
Because it gets harder to achieve lower BP
levels the lower you set the standard.
In other words, women may require more
drugs to get to the level they need to than men may need, which also means, of
course, that women may – likely will - suffer more side effects and
complications from their BP therapy than their other-gender spouse might suffer.
Second, an interesting study showed that
the music a person is listening to when they get their blood pressure checked may
affect their BP reading.
In this study, patients getting their BP
measured who listened to Mozart actually had a small but significant drop in
their average BP, people listening to rock music (a song from Queen) had a
spike in their average BP.
All of which has wider implications that it
seems because what this highlights is that lots of factors – yes, the music on
your Ipod, but also the personality – or lack of same - of your doctor, the
receptionist’s attitude, how long you’ve been kept waiting, what you have to
get to after you leave the office – may affect your BP reading in a doc tor’s
office, so try to get it done in as neutral a state as you can, not always easy
to do in a strange environment like that.
So a better idea if you can manage it is to
get your BP measured on your own time, preferably on a machine you buy to use
at home: that’s a way more accurate measure of your “true” BP than a one or
even two-off in your doctor’s office.
But whatever you do, there is one clear
implication from this study: when waiting to get your BP done, pick Mozart or
Mahler over Megadeath.
A third study to note concerned people with
a high genetic risk for HBP, specifically people in whom both parents suffered
from high blood pressure.
In this study, people with that high
pre-disposing risk were very nicely able to counter-act it by doing – you
guessed it! I’m sure – lots of exercise.
In other words, and this also goes for
other important inherited risks such as a tendency to obesity, for example –
healthy lifestyle choices trump genetic risks, so work out, eat right, and live
longer.
