Quiz · 7 questions

Why blood pressure matters

Chest pain, a sudden crushing headache, or a reading over 180/120 is an emergency, not a quiz.

Why it matters

High blood pressure has no feeling, and nearly half of adults who have it do not know [1]. From 115/75 upward, every 20 points of systolic pressure roughly doubles the risk of dying from heart disease or stroke [2]. Lowering it works: each 10 mmHg lowered cut deaths from any cause by about 13% in the trials [3].

Sources

  1. [1]WHO, WHO 2023 Evidence: Not graded (statistics)
  2. [2]Lewington et al., Lancet 2002 Evidence: High
  3. [3]Ettehad et al., Lancet 2016 Evidence: High

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