What is the Best Way to Define High Blood Pressure (hypertension)?

The greatest problem with high blood pressure today is that it is so common and talked about so frequently that a lot of people do not afford it the respect that it deserves. The fact is that high blood pressure, or hypertension (to give it its medical name), is a killer disease and needs to be treated as such.

Many hundreds of scientists and doctors have spent considerable money and time trying to identify exactly what the true definition of hypertension is.

There have been a large number of studies performed on this topic that have given the scientists and doctors a wide range of blood pressure values. However the results are frequently skewed and vary from one country to the next and even from district to district within a specific country. Accordingly, it has been agreed that the true definition of hypertension can only be found as a result of constant observation and experimentation.

Normal blood pressure is recognized much like normal body weight in that the defining level is that which is associated with the greatest chance of life expectancy. In other words, this is the pressure at which the heart together with other important parts of the body such as the circulatory system can operate under optimum conditions without running the risk of heart disease and other associated disorders.

Of course there are a number of other considerations that have to be taken into account when defining high blood pressure and some need to be excluded. For example, If a healthy individual becomes their systolic (or pumping) blood pressure can be expected to rise by perhaps a significant amount because their blood flow increases in response to emotional excitement or any type of energetic activity. But it will not stay high for very long and as soon as the level of excitement has gone down your blood pressure also returns to its normal level.

In addition to your systolic (pumping) pressure you also have a diastolic (resting) pressure which is the more important and is an excellent guide in ascertaining whether a high reading is a false positive. The reason why the diastolic pressure is important is because it points to the state of an individual's arteries and a high reading may show that your arteries are restricted and not allowing the free flow of blood as they should be.

It is important to understand that hypertension is not in itself a disease but is a key criterion by which doctors can predict or diagnose other conditions.

Finally, it is also necessary to realize that high blood pressure cannot be cured although it can be controlled very well.