Yet another lesson that medicine is not a game of limbo:
so going as low as you can does not necessarily help you win the game.
So the background here is that for the last few years,
many experts have argued that when it comes to matters like your cholesterol
level and your blood pressure, you should try to keep those levels as low as
you can get them without producing any untoward symptoms (such as dizziness,
for example, from a too-low BP).
The twin troubles with that approach are that 1) we really
have no proof that below a certain level, there is much to gain from going any
lower, and 2) to get your cholesterol and blood pressure down really low, you
often have to resort to taking 2, 3, even more meds and that of course has its
own often debilitating untoward effects.
So if you’re on 2,3 or more meds to get your systolic BP
(the upper number) below 120, which is what a lot of doctors have urged in a
bid to lower the risk of stroke, you might want to note that a study out today
in JAMA found that yes, lowering
systolic BP below 140 does lower the risk of stroke, but lowering that systolic
BP even more, that is , below 120 does not produce any better stroke risk than
simply keeping the systolic BP between 120-139.
