Barnton Pharmacy will be offering free blood pressure checks next week and also offering advice on how to get your blood pressure to a healthy range.
Before then , I thought you might be interested in reading some facts and figures about blood pressure and what it all means.
- High blood pressure is the main risk factor for stroke and a major risk factor for heart attack, heart failure and kidney disease. There is also increasing evidence that it is a risk factor for vascular dementia.
- High blood pressure is a level consistently at or above 140mmHg and/or 90mmHg.
- Approximately 16 million people in the UK have high blood pressure.
- 30 per cent of women and 32 per cent of men have high blood pressure.
- Up to the age of 64 there are higher rates of men with high blood pressure than women.
- People with high blood pressure are three times more likely to develop heart disease and stroke and twice as likely to die from these as people with a normal blood pressure.
- Approximately 62,000 unnecessary deaths from stroke and heart attacks occur due to poor blood pressure control
- High blood pressure rarely has any symptoms, the only way for people to know if they have the condition is to have their blood pressure measured
- Approximately one third of people with high blood pressure do not know that they have it.
- More than 90 per cent of people with high blood pressure who are receiving treatment are not controlled to 140/90 mmHg.
- Most people with high blood pressure who need to take medications, will need to take two or more to ensure that their blood pressure is lowered down to a target of 140/85mmHg
- Among women, levels of high blood pressure increase as income decreases.
- The risks increase as blood pressure rises, whether you have high blood pressure or a normal blood pressure – between the age of 40 and 70, for every rise of 20mmHg systolic or every 10mmHg diastolic the risk of heart disease and stroke doubles; for the range 115/75 up to 185/115mmHg
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