With blood pressure, is lower always better?
Posted on 29 July 2009
Raised blood pressure is believed to be a risk factor for cardiovascular diseases such as heart disease and stroke. Studies show that, in a population, the higher the blood pressure, the greater the risk of cardiovascular disease. This has led to some researchers suggesting that the lower the blood pressure is, the better.
However, we have seen examples in the past where this
Published July 29, 2009 . Filed under: Specific conditions
If I’m not mistaken, high blood pressure is just one effect of a compromised health condition. Treating one marker with drugs while ignoring the underlying cause of the high blood pressure is pretty silly and the non-results of the trials are not surprising! The pharma industry dutifully creates drugs to treat conditions and consider themselves successful when the specific condition improves, regardless of whether the mortality is addressed. It might be worse, or it might do nothing. Whatever the case, the drug sells briskly and patients are no better for it.
July 29, 2009 @ 3:23 pm
There was no reduced risk as mentioned because 135/85 is hardly low enough! It’s like saying ‘I didn’t get strong curling 5 lbs, I know… I’ll curl 7 lbs!’. I guarantee you that 95% of people out there don’t come close to 90/60 (except my wife, routinely 110/60-70. Curiously she eats a lot of pasta, considered by many of us to be a ‘bad’ carb inflammatory marker. oh well…) IF that study got people down to 115/70… now show me THAT study.
July 29, 2009 @ 7:48 pm
Taking drugs long-term to manage symptoms is not the same thing at all as restoring the body to health. The patients still had high blood pressure; all the drugs did by artificially forcing blood pressure lower was to cover up the problem. But the problem was still there, and hence patients still ended up with heart conditions. Blood pressure medications do nothing to eliminate the cause of high blood pressure.
July 29, 2009 @ 10:04 pm
To be of any value, that review really needed to do a comparison with the risks of attaining a substantially lower blood pressure in the order of <120/80. To say that, as there is no reduction in risk between 140/90 & 135/85, there is no need to try any harder is a bit misleading without that comparison to lower figures. If, all things considered, you can show there is no relative difference between 140/90 & 110/70 say, then you can focus efforts on other risk areas.
July 29, 2009 @ 10:08 pm
diamond and jamie
135/85 was not the blood pressure of the lower bp comparison group, it was LESS THAN OR EQUAL TO 135/85 (not the same thing)
Also, the researchers attempted to assess whether this difference might not be great enough to detect a benefit by re-analysing the data. Here’s what they did and the result:
“One possible argument against the findings of this review is that the minimum difference in the targets chosen in this review, 5 mmHg, was not great enough to demonstrate mortality and morbidity benefits. This argument can be tested in this meta-analysis by including only those trials where the difference in the targets was at least 10 mmHg. In fact placing this restriction on the review only excludes the middle group ( lower than 85 mmHg) of the HOT trial. A re-analysis with exclusion of the < 85 mmHg diastolic blood pressure group leads to a greater weighted mean difference in target diastolic blood pressure (10.3 mmHg) between the two groups and a greater difference in the mean achieved blood pressures of 5/4 mmHg. More importantly it led to no appreciable changes in the RR for mortality nor for any of the primary morbidity outcomes, and the conclusions remain the same as described above.”
So, it is possible that lower blood pressures are beneficial, but again the evidence does not support this. Any suggestion that lower is better is just guessing, unless you have other data that supports this view that you have not presented here.
July 30, 2009 @ 5:17 am
My blood pressure ranges between roughly 85/55 and 90/60 and my heart rate is around 72 – I feel fine with plenty of energy. My blood pressure used to be a bit higher, around 110/70 and my heart rate around 80 but then I started a Paleo diet and regular weight lifting just over two years ago and I think that’s why everything has got lower.
Anne
July 30, 2009 @ 2:10 pm
My father’s side of the family all have a naturally low blood pressure which gets higher as we get older. My G.P. took my BP three times in a row and found that it was high. I was put on a drug. I went to stay with friends on Mauritius for a month; my friend is a G.P. and he took my BP all the time and never once was it high. I concluded that it was either that I couldn’t find a parking space at my G.P’s surgery or that NTL were driving me mad again. I now go to a surgery that has a good car park and I changed my server. No tablets – Blood pressure normal.
July 31, 2009 @ 9:08 am
Surely it makes a big difference which type of blood pressure lowering medication was taken?
July 31, 2009 @ 10:14 pm
With high BP, the blood vessels particularly the tiny ones are stretched with the risk of rupturing. Commonsense suggests that the lower the pressure, less will be the strain on the vessels.
However, drugs can only be a stop-gap solution to high BP. A holistic approach is necessary to ensuring sound health.
August 1, 2009 @ 2:07 pm
Hi,
My bp has always been high. Thats OK I thought, I’ve got a good pump! At age 55 I was recommended medication, but declined it. At 63, needing knee surgery, I was told that if my bp did not come down, surgery could/would not be done.
I therefore took the medication. after surgery my GP argued that at my age with brain blood vessals becoming weaker,it was a good idea to remain on the medication in order to reduce the risk of stroke.
If this is a valid reason then I have no objectoin to taking med. even if there is no underlying problem with my system as a whole.
August 1, 2009 @ 2:57 pm
You ever see someone take their first dose af a beta blocker? I did! You know that guy in Star Trek who turned into a puddle of liquid and slept in a bucket? That’s exactly what he resembled, at one stage he couldn’t even sit on a chair without sliding onto the floor. We had to pour him into his car and drive him home.
When mother was overmedicated she had some episodes a bit like that. Now she is on mimimal meds and stays around 110/60 and copes very well for a 94 year old. Mine’s gradually gone back up from 120/80 to around 140/85 – originally it was 150/95 or so and increasing until I started to low carb which produced a dramatic drop. I’m still on a minimal dose of olmesartan so there’s plenty of leeway to increase it if the effect of the diet is overtaken by the effect of ageing, which seems to be occurring.
I think I hear my pulse rushing in my ears more at night but apart from that little to indicate the change.
“If I
August 11, 2009 @ 11:24 pm
I am one of those people who walk around with an average of 90/60 blood pressure. Most times I’m ok but once in a while, especially when I’m menstrating (sorry men but I felt I had to mention it), I feel light headed and have to be very careful when I stand up from a seated position. I can also sporadically feel my heart pounding in my chest for a few brief seconds.
Something’s telling me that this is not good. I’ve mentioned it to several doctors but they all say that as long as my blood pressure is not high then I’m fine.
Is there a way to naturally raise my blood pressure?
Tina
February 26, 2010 @ 2:14 am