Understanding Blood Pressure Range Implications By Paul J Johnson At Isnare.com Ezine Articles

A person's normal blood pressure range when they are at rest should sit around 120/80 mm Hg (millimeters of mercury) and generally, the lower it is the better.

Most people know that high blood pressure can cause serious repercussions, increasing the risk of having a stroke, heart attack and kidney problems, as well are other serious conditions. However, the levels where elevated blood pressure becomes dangerous can be different for each person.

This is one of the reasons that mean standards have been developed to indicate on average if a person is hypertensive, and this can then indicate whether they need treatment to reduce the risk of complications.

The difficulty is much of the damage caused by high blood pressure is not noticed, it can happen over a long time and the symptoms can be mild or non existent. Therefore it is important to use standard ranges to define treatment plans and also to help identify those that are more likely to require more urgent attention.

Another complication is that blood pressure can fluctuate throughout the day, dependent many factors including activity levels, posture, and diet, stress levels and medication, which can make those with only mild hypertension harder to diagnose.

Often, the doctor will require a person to have a few successive readings to ensure that they have a true baseline and other factors are not temporarily impacting on the reading, and subsequently the treatment options.

There are generally considered 4 classifications of hypertension in the US, these are “normal”, pre hypertentive, stage 1 hypertension, stage 2 hypertension and stage 3 hypertension.

In general the risk and severity of the complications that can stem from high blood pressure escalate for each successive stage.

The stages are:

Normal – up to a systolic reading of 120mmHg and up to a diastolic reading of 80mmHg
Prehypertentive – A systolic reading of between 120mmHg – 139mmHg OR a diastolic reading of between 80mmHg –89mmHg.
Stage 1 Hypertension – A systolic reading of between 140mmHg – 159mmHg OR a diastolic reading of between 90mmHg –99mmHg.
Stage 2 Hypertension – A systolic reading of between 160mmHg – 179mmHg OR a diastolic reading of between 100mmHg –109mmHg.
Stage 3 Hypertension – A systolic reading of 180mmHg or higher OR a diastolic reading of 110mmHg or higher.

It is important to note that both the systolic and diastolic readings are important, and either can independently indicate high blood pressure. However, usually blood pressure rises in both numbers when it elevates.

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The systolic measure is the measure of the arterial blood pressure, usually in the arm when the heart contracts. This will be the highest blood pressure reading.

The diastolic reading is the arterial blood pressure reading when the heart is relaxed, between contractions, and this should be the lowest reading.

mmHg stands for millimetres of mercury (which has the chemical symbol of Hg). For years the way to measure blood pressure has been to use a device that indicates blood pressure by using small tubes of mercury, that rise and fall dependent upon the small changes in blood pressure.

These machines are more commonly being changed over for electronic devices and there are now many versions that can be used from home.

The blood pressure range that you are within in important as it will generally dictate the treatment options used and the speed of treatment you need.

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