It’s Topic Tuesday!

Hello everyone! My name is Anirudh, and I’m very excited to make this my first post as the newest member of the Aortic Hope team! For this week’s Topic Tuesday, we’ll take a closer look at how blood pressure is measured and how small changes in that process can lead to big changes in your medical care.

How is Blood Pressure Measured (Ideally)?

Blood pressure (BP) is measured manually or with a machine using a blood pressure cuff (sphygmomanometer) that wraps around your arm and inflates. As the cuff inflates, it puts pressure on your arm and compresses the blood vessels running under the cuff. As the cuff deflates, one can measure your systolic pressure (the upper number in a BP reading, which indicates the pressure in your vessels when your heart is pushing blood out) and your diastolic pressure (the lower number, which tells you the pressure in your vessels when your heart is relaxing and filling with blood). Seems simple, right?

The problem is, your BP can vary a lot throughout the day depending on what you are doing and even how your body is positioned. Because of that, there are several things you can do to ensure that your BP is being measured accurately.

Why Does It Matter How You Measure Your Blood Pressure?

If you measure your BP incorrectly, it can lead to a reading that is often higher than it is supposed to be. Studies have shown that incorrect arm positioning can increase your systolic pressure measurement by almost 7 mmHg and your diastolic pressure by almost 4 mmHg! 

Since we have objective cutoffs for diagnosing hypertension (a BP of ≥140/ ≥90), the increased pressures from an incorrect measurement might cause you to be diagnosed with hypertension despite not actually having it, which can, in turn, lead to unnecessary interventions or medicines.

How can you prevent this from happening?

Doctors have a very limited view of patients’ lives when they are seen in the office. Because of that, the most accurate BP measurements are often those you take at home, averaged over a long period of time (weeks to months). If you ensure that you are consistently taking your BP correctly at home, this will provide the most reliable assessment of your BP for your doctors to work off of. 

Here's a great article to read about this very topic:

https://english.elpais.com/health/2024-11-17/incorrect-arm-positioning-can-lead-to-false-hypertension-diagnoses-we-make-mistakes-in-measuring-blood-pressure-more-often-than-not.html

That’s all for this week, folks. Thank you so much for joining me here! Hope to see you again next week!

Signing off,

Anirudh Karla