For the first time since 2017, there are new guidelines for blood pressure to help prevent future health conditions like heart disease and dementia.
And these new recommendations have doctors being a little more aggressive about high levels of blood pressure.
In the U.S., nearly half of all adults have higher than normal blood pressure. But many may not know it.
State one hypertension is 130 over 80 mm of mercury and higher, according to new guidelines from the American Heart Association and the American College of Cardiology.
“We’ve got to start thinking about people actually having hypertension, calling it hypertension even at lower numbers, and we have to treat it more aggressively,” said Dr. Sanjay Gupta, a neurosurgeon with Grady Memorial Hospital.
High blood pressure doesn’t typically have symptom, but when it shoots up, the force of your blood pushes against the walls of your blood vessels, making your heart work harder.
Without treatment, high blood pressure will eventually damage arteries, raising the risk of a heart attack or stroke.
The new guidelines say if your systolic blood pressure is in the 130 to 139 range, lifestyle changes are in order.
“Diet and exercise and really cutting back salt and a big one that they’re saying: No alcohol,” Gupta said.
The guidelines used to say that if people chose to drink, it should be one drink or less a day for women and two or less a day for men.
Experts say there’s a lot of evidence now that alcohol negatively impacts your blood pressure.
If lifestyle changes don’t work, experts say to then consider medication to help lower blood pressure.
The new guidelines say keeping blood pressure at normal levels can not only help heart health but also help protect your brain in the future.
“There was a study out of rural China that actually looked at people who had blood pressure of 130 or higher, and they were basically intensively controlled, meaning through lifestyle changes or sometimes through medications they were able to bring their blood pressure down,” Gupta explained. “And they found that when they did that, they also lowered their risk of dementia.”