135/87 Blood Pressure Good Or Bad

Height And Blood Pressure

The impact of fasting on high blood pressure (2020) | Buchinger Wilhelmi

Height isn’t a risk factor but taller people tend to have higher blood pressure because this offsets gravity and other factors to ensure the brain – the highest organ – gets enough blood flow and oxygen. However, the effect of height is minor, so its not taken into account in blood pressure range guidelines.

Discuss Medication With A Doctor

When dealing with high blood pressure readings, it’s necessary to consult with your doctor to find proper ways to manage and prevent hypertension.

Depending on your age, lifestyle, and blood pressure readings, your doctor may recommend medication as part of a treatment program for hypertension.

It’s not clear if medication is beneficial for adults who have prehypertension alone. However, if you have another medical condition along with prehypertension, such as diabetes or kidney disease, your doctor might decide its best to start treatment as early as possible.

Those with stage 1 and stage 2 hypertension may be prescribed one or more of the following drugs:

Blood Pressure Chart With Readings By Age And Sex

Average Ranges Show Normal Pressure On the Arteries

Frequently Asked Questions

Blood pressure measures the force pressed against the walls of your arteries as your heart pumps blood through your body.

Average blood pressure differs by sex and tends to rise with age. It’s important to know how blood pressure affects your health.

This article covers how healthcare providers differentiate between “normal” blood pressure and hypertension and includes blood pressure charts by age and gender. It will also discuss the health risks involved with hypertension, how you can monitor your blood pressure, and when you should call your healthcare provider.

What Is Blood Pressure And Why Is This Important

Blood is pumped through our bloodstream by the heart. This creates pressure on the vessel walls. If the arteries are elastic, this pressure can be cushioned well.

With age, the elasticity of the blood vessels decreases. Their ability to expand is reduced and your blood pressure will rise. This can lead to an increased risk of cardiovascular diseases. It can even lead to a heart attack or a stroke.

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How To Maintain Normal Blood Pressure

Maintaining normal blood pressure has a lot to do with keeping a healthy lifestyle. However, for some individuals with hypertension, medications are sometimes needed because the risks are higher. Here are some things you should do to reduce your risk of hypertension:

Moderate or cut down your alcohol intake
Have regular medical checkups

What Does A Blood Pressure Reading Of 136/87 Mean

Readings between 120/80 and 139/89 indicate Pre-Hypertension or High Normal blood pressure. The good news is you dont have hypertension. However, your blood pressure is higher than recommended for most adults.

Research suggests that people with pre-hypertension are more likely to have a heart attack or stroke compared to those with lower blood pressure.

Also Check: How To Maintain Blood Pressure

What Prehypertension Does To Your Body

Most people understand that elevated blood pressure is a risk in cardiovascular disease. However, it can be very difficult to identify hypertension, particularly in the early stages, because there are so few physically-outward symptoms. Instead, the damage is silently being done to your organs and vascular system. Yep, thats organs, not organ. Unmanaged high blood pressure damages much more than just your heart.

Cardiovascular

Your systolic number represents the amount of pressure in your arteries when your heart beats, and diastolic pressure measures the pressure between heat beats. When pressure increases, your heart has to work harder to deliver/receive its blood supply, and your vascular system and cardiovascular muscle tissue becomes strained. As elevated blood pressure continues, the cell lining of arteries harden, stiffen, and restrict blood flow. You become more prone to fatty deposits and aneurysms. Prehypertension doubles the risk of developing hypertension and heart disease.

Kidneys

The kidneys are also impacted by elevated blood pressure. Over time, the blood vessels supplying blood to the kidneys can narrow and stiffen under the excess strain of high blood pressure. They eventually become unable to effectively filter excess waste and debris from the body. Chronic high blood pressure is one of the leading causes of kidney disease and kidney failure.

Brain

Eyes

Nervous system

What Are The Symptoms Of High Blood Pressure

The Results Are In!

Most people with high blood pressure have no symptoms, and feel quite well. This is why its important to see your doctor and have your blood pressure checked regularly, especially if you have one or more of the risk factors listed above.

A few people with very high blood pressure may experience headache, dizziness or the sudden effects of diseases of the arteries such as chest pain or stroke.

Check your symptoms with healthdirects online Symptom Checker to get advice on when to seek medical attention.

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What Is The Treatment For High Blood Pressure In Pregnancy

If your doctor or midwife finds that your blood pressure is high during your pregnancy, they will usually check to see if you have any protein in your urine and ask you if you have any symptoms of pre-eclampsia. If your blood pressure remains high, or if you have any signs of pre-eclampsia, you will usually be seen by a specialist . In order to advise on treatment, there are various questions that need to be considered by the specialist, such as:

How severe is your high blood pressure ?
Is there pre-eclampsia and, if so, how severe is it?
How far on is your pregnancy?
What are the risks to you, the mother, and your baby? This will depend on the severity of your high blood pressure and whether or not pre-eclampsia is present.

High Blood Pressure Side Effects

High blood pressure is linked to serious health consequences. Here are some of the side effects and other illnesses high blood pressure plays a role in:

If you already have another underlying medical condition, such as diabetes or high cholesterol, paired with high blood pressure, your risk for these diseases vastly increases.

How Do I Know If I Have High Blood Pressure Whilst I Am Pregnant

Many women with high blood pressure during their pregnancy do not have any symptoms. This is why your blood pressure is checked regularly by your doctor or midwife during your pregnancy. Your urine is also tested regularly for protein, to look for possible pre-eclampsia.

However, there are some symptoms that you should look out for that could be signs of pre-eclampsia. If you develop any of these, you should see your doctor or midwife urgently so that they can check your blood pressure and test your urine for protein. They include:

Severe headaches that do not go away.
Problems with your vision, such as blurred vision, flashing lights or spots in front of your eyes.
Tummy pain. The pain that occurs with pre-eclampsia tends to be mainly in the upper part of the abdomen, just below your ribs, especially on your right side.
Vomiting later in your pregnancy .
Sudden swelling or puffiness of your hands, face or feet.
Feeling out of breath.
Not being able to feel your baby move as much.
Just not feeling right.

Note: swelling or puffiness of your feet, face, or hands is common in normal pregnancy. Most women with this symptom do not have pre-eclampsia but it can become worse in pre-eclampsia. Therefore, report any sudden worsening of swelling of the hands, face or feet promptly to your doctor or midwife.

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What The New Blood Pressure Guidelines Mean For Caregivers

Free Cheatsheet

AgingCare.com only publishes articles that wont be published elsewhere on the web, so I cant post the whole thing here. But here are the highlights related to the December 2013 BP guidelines:

A higher target BP for adults aged 60 or older. The recommended goal BP is now less than 150/90, instead of less than 140/90 .

A higher target BP for people with diabetes and/or kidney disease. The recommended goal BP is now less than 140/90, instead of less than 130/80.

What does this mean for you, if youre caring for aging parents or other older persons? It means you should check on how their BP has been doing.

If its been much lower than the numbers above, you should consider discussing the BP medications with your parents doctor. This is especially important if youve had any concerns about falls or balance. For specific recommendations on how to make sure your older loved one isnt getting too much blood pressure medication, read my full article at AgingCare.com. I also offer tips on checking BP in this post: Why I Love Home Blood Pressure Monitors.

Last but not least, I provide more guidance on figuring out hypertension treatment here: 6 Steps to Better High Blood Pressure Treatment for Older Adults.

Free Cheatsheet

How Age Affects Blood Pressure

For infants, toddlers, and pre-adolescent aged children, doctors follow separate guidelines and standards to define high blood pressure. Average readings tend to be lower at a younger age and increase as you grow older. During late adolescence doctors typically begin to follow the standard adult guidelines for high blood pressure.

As you age, your risk of developing high blood pressure increases.

Blood pressure charts aren’t commonly broken down by age, however, pediatric charts are often separated into ranges for infants, toddlers, and pre-adolescents. Pediatric standards for high and low blood pressure differ from those used for adults. Sometimes gender can influence readings, but measurements are still compared on the same scale.

Why Our Blood Is Pressurized

In many ways, our circulatory system works the same as the plumbing in our homes, except much more complicated. Just like water through pipes, blood flows through our arteries because of differences in pressure. It moves from areas of high pressure to areas of low pressure all across the body.

However, conditions like high cholesterol that constrict or block arteries can cause this pressure to be unnaturally elevated. This is what causes dangerous conditions like heart attack and stroke.

Who Was And Wasnt Studied In The Sprint Blood Pressure Trial

Do the study results apply to you or your older relative? This is one of the two most important questions to ask yourself, when you hear exciting news about clinical research.

Why? Because a well-done medical study tells us what health outcomes happened when we applied a certain intervention to a certain group of people. If you arent like the people who were studied, then theres a higher chance you wont experience the benefits that study participants did.

So who was in SPRINT? Here are the criteria the researchers used to define the study group, and enroll participants.

What the SPRINT participants were like:

Its equally important to consider who was excluded from SPRINT. You may have already heard that SPRINT didnt cover people with diabetes or stroke, but the exclusion list is much longer than that.

What the SPRINT participants were not like: Older persons with any of the following diagnoses, conditions, or circumstances were not eligible for the study:

Clinical diagnosis of dementia, and/or being on dementia medication
People residing in a nursing home.
Substance abuse
Symptomatic heart failure within the past 6 months or left ventricular ejection fraction < 35%
Polycystic kidney disease or eGFR < 20
Significant history of poor compliance with medications or attendance at clinic visits.

As you can see, quite a lot of common diagnoses and circumstances were grounds for exclusion from the SPRINT study.

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Have Your Blood Pressure Measured Regularly

Have your blood pressure measured regularly and know what your blood pressure is. Remember that both numbers are important. If either the systolic or diastolic number is high , then your doctor will need to further check your blood pressure. A blood pressure measurement of less than 120/80 mmHg is very good unless it causes dizziness.

Normal Blood Pressure By Age

What is normal blood pressure according to age?

The blood pressure is the pressure of the blood within the arteries. It is produced primarily by the contraction of the heart muscle. Its measurement is recorded by two numbers. The first is measured after the heart contracts and is highest. The second is measured before the heart contracts and the lowest. A blood pressure cuff is used to measure the pressure. Elevation of blood pressure is called “hypertension”.

The chart in the article shows normal blood pressure according to age both male and female. Diastolic blood pressure and Systolic Blood Pressure are included in the chart.

Blood pressure readings can vary in a single person throughout the day depending on the situation. Factors such as stress, anxiety, foods are eaten , smoking or exercise can cause pressure to rise.

The American Heart Association defines

normal blood pressure as less than 120/80,
elevated blood pressure ranges between 120/80 and 129/80, and
high blood pressure is 130/80 and higher.
In pregnancy, normal blood pressure should be below 120/80.

If your blood pressure reaches the high range, you should see your doctor about lifestyle changes, and possibly medication especially if you have other risk factors, such as diabetes or heart disease.

If your blood pressure is lower than about 100/60 you may have low blood pressure, depending on the associated symptoms. If you are unsure, check with your doctor.

Different blood pressure categories chart

Category

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How Is High Blood Pressure Diagnosed

Since high blood pressure doesnt have symptoms, your healthcare provider will need to check your blood pressure with a blood pressure cuff. Providers usually check your blood pressure at every annual checkup or appointment. If you have high blood pressure readings at two appointments or more, your provider may tell you that you have high blood pressure.

Symptoms Of Pulmonary Hypertension

Early signs of pulmonary arterial hypertension can be related to the trouble you have getting blood to your lungs to get oxygenated. You might experience shortness of breath and a fast heartbeat while doing activities that are otherwise routine, such as climbing stairs. You might also have chest pain, a reduced appetite, and pain in your chest or upper right portion of your abdomen.

Pulmonary arterial hypertension symptoms can develop into light-headedness and fainting. Your lips and skin might have a bluish tinge because of the lack of adequate oxygenation of your blood.

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High Blood Pressure In Pregnancy

Some women already have high blood pressure before they become pregnant and they may be on treatment for this. You can also develop high blood pressure whilst you are pregnant, which returns to normal after your baby is born. This is called gestational hypertension.

There is a separate, less common condition called pre-eclampsia which can develop during pregnancy. This involves high blood pressure as well as other symptoms. This condition can become serious and needs extra care.

High Blood Pressure in Pregnancy

Know Your Blood Pressure Numbers

To manage your blood pressure, you need to know which blood pressure numbers are ideal and which ones are cause for concern.

In general, meeting the criteria for hypotension has more to do with symptoms and specific situations than with exact numbers. But institutions like the and the United Kingdoms National Health Service consider people hypotensive if their blood pressure falls within this range:

Systolic blood pressure in mm Hg	Diastolic blood pressure in mm Hg	Blood pressure category
And 60 or below	Hypotension

The numbers for hypotension serve as a guide, while the numbers for hypertension are more precise. According to the , these ranges represent normal, elevated, or high blood pressure:

Systolic blood pressure in mm Hg	Diastolic blood pressure in mm Hg	Blood pressure category
higher than 120	Hypertensive crisis

When looking at these numbers, notice that only one of them needs to be too high to put you in a hypertensive category. For example, if your blood pressure is 119/81, youd be considered to have stage 1 hypertension.