Welcome to the Younger Longer 14-Day Blood Pressure Challenge. My name is Dr. Warrick Bishop. I'm a preventative cardiologist and I'm super excited that you're looking to look after your blood pressure. It is one of the most important and really one of the simplest things you can look after to look after your heart for the rest of your life.
During this 14-Day Challenge I'm going to share with you a whole lot of stuff. Every day, a video, some resources, a challenge or a task for you to complete and a fun fact. Stay tuned, your blood pressure is super important. Let me explain to you how, what you're going to do about it and how you're going to look after yourself for the years ahead
Why Listen?
- Get practical tips and science-backed advice you can apply immediately.
- Learn from real-world examples and medical expertise.
- Gain daily challenges to help you stay engaged and track progress.
- Take charge of your heart health in a simple, effective, and engaging way.
Transcript
Hi, Dr Warrick here and welcome to day four. Now we're going to talk about measuring blood pressure and how we get around to doing that and why getting it right can make all the difference.
Well, here's something that might surprise you. Up to 30% of people diagnosed with high blood pressure in the clinic don't actually have it. We call that white coat hypertension where the presence of a doctor or the anxiety of being in a clinic setting itself temporarily elevates blood pressure during that visit. These people will have basically normal readings outside of that clinic. So, we really need to be able to measure these people in a way that allows us to figure that out.
On the flip side, of course, we find people who have masked hypertension where their clinic readings look okay, but they're often a little bit too high and maybe don't fluctuate overnight or reduce at other times. And therefore, they may be actually running a greater burden than we may have guessed from a clinic measurement.
Well, that's where 24-hour blood pressure monitoring comes in. These small portable devices, they basically are a blood pressure cuff that you carry around and they go off every 30 minutes during the day and then every hour overnight. By getting multiple data points, we just get a much better picture of what's going on. Most people's blood pressure goes up and down.
It is quite erratic, not dissimilar to watching the share market during a Trump presidency. But how do you really figure out what's going on with the individual? Well, you track them over time. More data, better information, better decisions.
So, nighttime blood pressure is actually a better predictor of future heart attack and stroke than daytime readings. So, seeing a nighttime dip, which is what we normally expect with people, that blood pressure sinks overnight to let the body rest is really valuable.
It's also incredibly useful when someone's blood pressure readings fluctuate a lot. And I get patients who come in from time to time with their home measurements and they're all over the place.
But a 24-hour monitor gives us a beautiful set of data that we can often put on a graph and gives us really good insights into what's going on over time so we can start to make best decisions. 24-hour blood pressure monitoring is available in Australia with a Medicare rebate once a year. If you're in any doubt whatsoever, please talk to your doctor about it.
Tomorrow we're talking about food. I look forward to catching up then. Until then, I hope you live as well as possible for as long as possible. Take care and bye for now.
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