Blood Pressure (Video)

The heart pumps blood through the blood vessels in our bodies. This is important for delivering oxygen and other nutrients to our tissues, and also for removing waste. The pumping action is caused by the heart muscle relaxing and contracting. When the heart muscle relaxes (called diastole) the heart is filled with blood. Subsequent contraction of the heart muscle (called systole) forces the blood from the heart into the blood vessels to circulate around the body. Blood pressure (BP) refers to the pressure created in the arteries by blood as the heart contracts and relaxes.

Transcript

Blood pressure is one of those things that we hear a lot about, but sometimes we can scratch our heads and think, what does it actually mean?
Hi, I’m Dr Joe.
Blood pressure is the pressure with which your blood, obviously, gets pumped from your heart out into the body and the circulation. Now we know there are two figures with your blood pressure, it’s always something over something else. The top figure is the systolic blood pressure and that is the pressure when the heart beats or contracts and pushes the blood out of the arteries and into your body. All the cells in your body need the oxygen and the sugar and that comes from the blood stream. The diastolic pressure or the lower figure is the pressure in between beats. Now we know the heart beats anywhere between 60 and 80 times per minute and faster if we’re doing some exercise, for example. But there is beat, beat, beat, beat. In between all of those beats, is when the heart is resting and that’s the diastolic pressure. So that’s the pressure that it never gets below.
Now historically, it’s always been said that the diastolic is more important that the systolic pressure. They’re both important, but as we can see, the diastolic one, as it’s the lower of the two and it’s, if you like, the baseline pressure, it can still be argued to be a little more critical. We also know that is the one that changes less, so when we do exercise our systolic pressure can go up 80 or 100 points. The diastolic pressure may go up only 10 or 20 points so it doesn’t change quite as much.
High blood pressure is a problem and it can need to be treated. If we do have high blood pressure, that can contribute to the development of heart disease, it’s a factor in the development of strokes, it can also lead to kidney disease and a whole raft of other problems. High blood pressure doesn’t normally have any symptoms, the only way you know if your blood pressure is up is by getting it measured and this of course you can do at your GP. Today some people can and do buy home monitors, and most of those are actually reasonably reliable. At a given point in time your blood pressure may be elevated, depending upon what you’ve just done or how you’re feeling. One reading doesn’t tell us a huge amount, it is a series of readings over time because as we’ve already seen, theoretically, your blood pressure could change you know 50, 60, 70, 80 times per minute so we need to see more what an average figure is. If the blood pressure is elevated, and again, there are different cut offs used according to age, the text book blood pressure is 120/80 – not everybody will have that sort of pressure and they don’t need to. The normal range, if you like is generally defined as somewhere between about a hundred to a hundred and ten on up to a hundred and forty over somewhere between seventy and ninety. As people get older and the blood vessels can become a little less elastic, sometimes the pressure needs to be a little bit higher than that to make sure you don’t faint or topple over. Again, different people argue about exact cut offs and single readings need to be taken as not the be all and end all.
What can we do to maintain our blood pressure in the normal rage?
A couple of key things. Regular exercise is very, very good for blood pressure. Yes, in the short term whilst we’re running or bike riding or swimming our pressure may well go up, that’s what we expect, but the lasting effect is that it tends to lower blood pressure. Obviously for people if they’re over weight, then coming down to a healthier weight is going to help your blood pressure and we also know that stress can affect blood pressure. Some medications can have that effect too and push it in the wrong direction.
So treatment for blood pressure is generally medication if simple lifestyle-type measures don’t have the desired effect and sometimes they will, sometimes they won’t. There are a number of different medications that can be used. There is a large number on the market these days. It sometimes is a little bit of trial and error to see which medication is best for you, both in that a) it works and has a positive effect on your blood pressure and b) doesn’t cause side effects. So don’t be afraid to chat with your doctor about options and be prepared to trial different medications to see which one is right for you.
All up, if we keep our blood pressure in the healthy range that is going to be good for our health overall, in particular in terms of our heart, kidneys and our brain. But it is good for all parts of the body. Simple things for your blood pressure is obviously the healthy eating, trying to maintain your weight in a healthy range and some regular exercise. After that, if need be, medications can be used and there is quite a good variety of those. So looking after your blood pressure is part of looking after your health.

More information

For more information on high blood pressure, including investigations and treatments, as well as some useful animations, videos and tools, see Hypertension (High Blood Pressure).