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Check your blood pressure

Having your blood pressure checked is simple, but essential. The British Heart Foundation suggests that everyone should have their blood pressure measured at least every five years from their 20s onwards. Nearly one in four adults in the UK now has high blood pressure, otherwise known as hypertension. Having high blood pressure puts you at risk of having a heart attack or a stroke and, more alarmingly, one in three people with high blood pressure are not being treated for it.

Blood pressure is the force your blood exerts against the walls of your arteries. To measure it, a sphygmomanometer, a cuff that looks rather like a swimming armband, is wrapped around the upper arm and inflated to stop the flow of blood into the arm. The cuff is gradually deflated, so the doctor or nurse, listening with a stethoscope, can measure the blood pressure.

What does blood pressure measure?
There are two figures given in a blood pressure reading. Systolic - which refers to the pressure produced when the heart contracts to force the blood into the arteries; and diastolic, which is when the heart relaxes and allows blood to flow back into it from the veins. The systolic pressure is nearly always higher than the diastolic pressure, but it is the diastolic reading that is important in diagnosing hypertension. Blood pressure varies from person to person, but higher than 150/90 (systolic/diastolic) is considered high.

Remember that anxiety can send your blood pressure up - even anxiety at having it measured. This, however, is a well-known phenomenon known as 'white coat hypertension'. As a rule, raised blood pressure is measured over several weeks, so that an average reading is assessed.

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