Blood Pressure Numbers: What They Mean and Why They Matter

Every time you see a doctor, one of the first things the medical team does is take a blood pressure reading. You understand that blood pressure is important, but maybe you’re not exactly sure why.

Well, you’ve come to the right place. Our extensive team of healthcare providers here at LaSante Health Center includes heart health experts who understand the importance of education when it comes to high blood pressure, which affects nearly half of adults in the United States, or nearly 120 million people.

So we tasked our team to get back to basics when it comes to high blood pressure. Here’s what we want to share.

Blood pressure by the numbers

As the name suggests, when we refer to your blood pressure, it’s exactly that — the pressure of the blood on the walls of your blood vessels as it travels through. 

Your circulatory system is vast and contains a whopping 60,000 miles of blood vessels. The ones we’re concerned with when it comes to blood pressure are the arteries that deliver blood from your heart throughout your body.

When we measure your blood pressure, we take two readings:

• Systolic — the pressure on your arteries during a heartbeat
• Diastolic — the pressure on your arteries in between heartbeats

The resulting reading contains two numbers — the systolic over the diastolic — and we want them to be at 120 mm Hg over 80 mm Hg or lower.

We consider 120-129 over 80 to be elevated, and any reading of 130/80 or higher is hypertension, or high blood pressure.

Why high blood pressure is bad

Now let’s get into why higher blood pressure numbers are potentially so dangerous and even referred to as a silent killer.

First, consider this: The human heart pumps about 2,000 gallons of blood per day and, by the time you reach the age of 70, your heart has beat about 2.5 billion times.

Under normal circumstances, this is a lot of wear-and-tear, but if your blood is flowing through your arteries with more force, the wear-and-tear accelerates. As a result, your blood vessels can become stiff, narrower, and damaged.

Potential complications of high blood pressure

As a result of the damage to your arteries that can come with high blood pressure, especially as you get older, you’re more vulnerable to some very serious health complications, including:

• Heart attack
• Heart disease
• Stroke
• Kidney disease
• Vision loss
• Memory loss
• Erectile dysfunction

And these are just the tip of the iceberg, as high blood pressure can cast a very wide net over your health.

The good news with high blood pressure

While we’ve painted a fairly ominous picture, we want to leave you with this important thought moving forward: There are many ways to lower your blood pressure and reverse the course of your health. 

From medications to lifestyle adjustments that include dietary tweaks and more exercise, we can help you lower your blood pressure numbers and avoid some very serious health complications.

To get on the road to better heart health by lowering your blood pressure, book an appointment online or call us at our Brooklyn, New York, office at 718-246-5700.  

We serve the Flatbush and East Flatbush, Crown Heights, Park Slope, Little Haiti, Little Caribbean, and Prospect Lefferts Gardens communities.