Half of US adults have high blood pressure in new guidelines

[RTO]

New guidelines lower the threshold for high blood pressure, adding 30 million Americans to those who have the condition, which now plagues nearly half of U.S. adults.

High pressure, which for decades has been a top reading of at least 140 or a bottom one of 90, drops to 130 over 80 in advice announced Monday by a dozen medical groups.

The change means an additional 14 percent of U.S. adults have the problem, but only 2 percent of these newly added people need medication right away; the rest should try healthier lifestyles, which get much stronger emphasis in the new advice. Poor diets, lack of exercise and other bad habits cause 90 percent of high blood pressure.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/half-us-a...204049684.html

I go to 3 different docs twice a year at least. When the nurse checks my BP it almost always reads waaaaay high. I ask her to wait a few minutes and check it again and then it is normal (for me) at the 130s over 80s.

I have 'white coat syndrome'. Could be the long drive there through bad, thick traffic, don't know.

The VA furnished me with a new BP monitor at no charge. I already had one but my PCP insisted that I use the new one, so I do.

So by these new guidelines it looks like I may have borderline high BP.