![]() ![]() Since my first weeks writing for this newspaper in the early 1960s, I’ve publicized their advice urging people to curb preventable risks to their hearts and blood vessels.Īlthough significant progress has been made along several fronts, especially drastic cuts in cigarette smoking and lowered levels of artery-damaging cholesterol, atherosclerotic heart disease still kills far too many people in this country long before they reach their potential life span. Starting in the 1940s, cardiovascular researchers have unveiled evidence that Americans live in a society that all but guarantees a disproportionately high risk of developing and dying of heart disease. The new findings suggest a need to look more carefully at why, despite considerable overall improvements in risk factors for heart disease in recent decades, it remains the nation’s leading killer. Systolic blood pressure represents the pressure within arteries when the heart pumps (as opposed to diastolic blood pressure, the lower smaller number, when the heart rests). The study, published in June in JAMA Cardiology, found that as systolic blood pressure rose above 90 mm, the risk of damage to coronary arteries rose along with it. The latest iteration of an “ideal” blood pressure - a level of 120 millimeters of mercury for systolic pressure, the top number - that Americans are urged to achieve and maintain has been called into question by a long-term multiethnic study of otherwise healthy adults. ![]() So you think your blood pressure is normal? Think again. ![]()
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May 2023
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