The blood pressure in our body is constantly changing and it is very rare for an individual to have a blood pressure level which is constant. Almost everything we do will have an affect on our blood pressure which will move up and down as we go about our normal day to day business. Simple things such as watching television, walking the dog, sleeping, sitting, mowing the lawn, talking, drinking, walking and almost anything else you can think of will alter your blood pressure reading.
While the fact that your blood pressure is always fluctuating is nothing more than a simple fact of life it can of course create problems for doctors who need to use blood pressure to monitor your general health. The problem therefore is to try to define a blood pressure level which can be considered as a normal average and then define limits below and above this value which can also be considered as representing the range of normal blood pressure variation. The starting for doing this is to look at the pressure in the body's arteries when the heart is pumping freshly oxygenated blood to the various organs of the body.
blood transports oxygen and a mixture of nutrients to all parts of the body along a series of blood vessels beginning with the main aorta carrying blood from the heart and ending in a multitude of tiny capillaries.
The first thing which must be considered therefore is precisely how high a pressure is required in the aorta when the blood leaves the heart for it to reach its destination in distant parts of the body.
Thereafter, the second thing which must be considered is how high a pressure is required in the capillaries to transfer the oxygen and nutrients into the body's tissues.
Long and careful study over a number of years has shown that the ideal arterial pressure to deliver blood to every part the body and to enable the movement of oxygen and nutrients into the body's tissues is 120 mm Hg. This value represents the normal blood pressure when the heart pumps blood around the body and is usually called the systolic pressure.
like many things in life however a pressure slightly below or above this figure will not make a lot of difference and your body will still work well enough. But, when your blood pressure climbs too high or falls too low then you will begin to run into trouble.
So exactly what are the upper and lower limits within which the average individual should be able to continue operating normally?
Here the edges become a little bit fuzzy and the answer varies from individual to individual. Nonetheless as a general rule the upper limit for blood pressure in most people will be approximately 140 mg Hg and the lower limit will be about 90 mg Hg.
Perhaps the most important point at which to start however is to establish the figure which is right for you and which takes into account such things as your age and general health together with your lifestyle. Having agreed this figure with your physician it is then merely a matter of monitoring you blood pressure.
![[Valid RSS feed]](/images/icon_Rss.png "XML Feed For RSS"){kind=icon}
Category Rss Feed
Print This Article
Add To Favorites
