So I took my blood pressure this morning, and it popped slightly into the yellow range. According to the documentation with my blood pressure monitor, that’s the “caution” range. It does that from time to time. So I went online and checked what it meant and it said “make lifestyle changes.” Then I checked the blood pressure charts and… WTF? My blood pressure is below average for a man my age? And in fact is average for a man ten years younger than me?
I don’t get it. What purpose is served by telling people whose blood pressure is below average for someone their age, who in fact has the BP of a man ten years younger, that they need to “make lifestyle changes”? Other than discrediting the medical profession as a bunch of idiots who can’t tell the difference between normal aging and disease, that is?
– Badtux the Healthy(?) Penguin
Badtux the Snarky Penguin 
Ya never know Tux. Them charts are written for a huge sample. My Dad had HBP and lived to be 93. Medicine is not an exact science – which I’ve found out a lot about.
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Yah, medicine is not an exact science. But telling me that I need to change my lifestyle when my blood pressure is actually *lower* than average for a man my age is… what’s that word again? Starts with an S, ends with a D?
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You might want to consider the possibility that the medical profession actually is a bunch of idiots who can’t tell the difference between normal aging and disease.
The next step is to put you on BP meds.
$$$$$$$$$
WASF!
JzB
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Nah, my blood pressure is way below BP med territory, and I’m on Chiseler Permanente so they don’t want to do things like that anyhow ’cause they make money by not providing care, not by providing care. Their doctors are on salary and don’t make more money by offering more care, indeed, could get demerits if they do that.
I’m just baffled as to why the medical profession seems to think getting old is a disease. Like you say, WASF!
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Uh, getting “old” does lead to death, no way around that. Call it a disease or a defect, or a plus, same result. Our choice seems to only be ‘how fast’.
As to the monitor thingy, yes they probably jump to get you to spend on meds and such. Didn’t a ‘med’ company make the machine? ‘Bayer’ makes quite a few models I know.
But, is there something ‘wrong’ with lifestyle changes that lead to lower blood pressure? Think about that for a minute.
Also, my Doc has a specific routine when they take my BP; arm level and supported but relaxed, feet out, back straight in chair. Do you use a specific set each time?
“Low is Great” , next to what it could be if I had stayed in the Bay Area.
My take on it anyway.
w3ski
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It’s not just the machine, w3ski, it’s on sites like the Chiseler-Permanente web site and the Mayo Clinic web site too. And again, those are not-for-profits whose doctors are on salary and make no more money by pushing meds.
There’s nothing *wrong* with lifestyle changes that lead to lower blood pressure, but saying that *all* Americans my age, including those with below-average blood pressure, need lifestyle changes ASAP or we’re all gonna die horrible and excruciating deaths is just silly buggers. It makes the medical profession look like screaming ninnies and makes us less likely to listen to them when they *are* right. Just sayin’.
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Perhaps the average man ten years younger than you also needs to make lifestyle changes. The average is not necessarily healthy.
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Badtux, the American Heart Association etal. no longer consider age a factor for blood pressure. If your BP is above 80/120, you have above normal BP regardless of your age. The cause of high BP is almost always the American diet of beefporkpoultrydairyprocessedfastfoodsoils etc. that causes arteries to clog up with plaque. Another way of looking at it is all those men 10 years younger than you have high BP too. Just cause you are in with them doesn’t put you in the clear.
I watched both of my parents die of heart disease. If it doesn’t kill you right away, it will do so slowly and painfully. I don’t recommend it for anyone.
At age 66, I had a BP of 95/160, and was headed in the same direction as my parents. I tried a vegan diet instead of medication, and never looked back. Within a month, I had normal blood pressure. Four years later, my BP is 60-66/110-120 plus I no longer have aching joints, lower back problems, or bad knees. It’s the diet, man. It’s the diet.
Drs. John McDougall, Caldwell Esselstyn, Michael Gregger etal. have channels on youtube you might find interesting.
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My experience exactly, Batman54. Excellent advice — although most people won’t follow it.
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Thank you, Jerry. You are absolutely right about people not going vegan. In four years, I’ve convinced zero people to try the vegan diet. I haven’t been able to get anyone to try it just for 2 weeks. All I’ve heard are lame excuses of why they can’t do it.
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And they say food is not an addiction, but just try to take away their meat and cheese!
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Does is have to be vegan to get those results, or will being merely vegetarian do?
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The closer you are to vegan, the better the results.
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Just got back from my unhealthy lifestyle (hiking in Castle Rock State Park) or I would have responded earlier.
FIrst, if your blood pressure was 160/95, you were either seriously obese, or are one of those people whose body responds badly to animal fats. I am neither, I can do with losing 10-20 pounds and will be working on that, but other than that I’m going to stay the course.
Secondly, if someone’s blood pressure is already lower than the average for his age, clearly he’s doing something right, so the *correct* answer is not “change your lifestyle!” but, rather, “do more of what you’re doing right!”. So I’m exercising regularly and (mostly) eating right, okay, so cut out some more of the junk food and replace it with healthy food, and get rid of some of that spare tire. That is, tune around the edges, not upend my lifestyle entirely, because clearly I’m already doing some things right compared to the average man my age.
Finally, regarding vegan or vegetarian, if I was one of those people sensitive to animal fats I’d do that. But it’s damned hard to get enough balanced proteins for an active lifestyle with a vegan diet. So I’ll be eating more fish and chicken and less pizza, but that’s going to be pretty much the extent of the changes diet-wise (and note that I already eat relatively little red meat, the occasional pizza and the occasional Subway sub are pretty much it).
BTW, the reading that sent the AMA’s alarm bells ringing? 122 over 81. Not exactly red alert material, yo.
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Nobody is going to sign your death certificate with a blood pressure of 122/81, and I believe the suggest was “make lifestyle changes” not “change your lifestyle”. Make changes is just what you said you are going to do (“So I’ll be eating more fish and chicken and less pizza…”).
So, how’s the cholesterol?
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It is interesting, though, how defensive one becomes (and I use to do this too) when one suggested taking away ones meat (including fish, poultry, and fowl) and dairy.
Should I mention the word “addiction” again?
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In my case it’s not a question of defensiveness, more along the lines of not seeing any reason to do so given the inconvenience caused and the lack of noticeable harm to my health caused by my current diet. By inconvenience, I mean that since I am sensitive to high-gluten pastas as are typically used in vegan diets to complement bean proteins in order to provide complete proteins, getting all the amino acids I need in a pure vegan diet that contains no animal proteins would be non-trivial. Going lacto-vegetarian would work much better for that for me and there’s in fact some days when that’s what I do (with cheese providing proteins that aren’t provided by beans), but that’s not vegan.
I just need to cut out pizza (and junk food) cold turkey, that’s all. Sigh!
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I think you need to update your information on sources of protein with a vegan diet. Here is a place to start.
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Yes, I’m aware of that list. Basically you can break that list down into two categories — beans, and seeds. A variety of both are needed to assure getting sufficient protein on a vegan diet. Note that the vast majority of the seed-type foods on that list are *not* available at my local grocery store (basically rice and wheat-based pasta and breads are “it” for the seeds and rice has fairly low protein content).Thus why I noted inconvenience as an issue.
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At 6′ tall and 205 lbs, I was overweight but hardly obese. I lost 50 of those pounds in the first year and have kept them off.
The only way you can lose weight on the typical American diet is by cutting down the size of portions. That works for a while but eventually everyone falls back and regains the lost weight. The stomach wants to be full.
The only way you can become protein deficient on a vegan diet is to starve yourself. Vegans don’t starve or go hungry. They eat as much as they want, and they don’t gain weight.
It took a while but the in 2011, the American Heart Association finally conceded that animal protein had no advantage over plant protein:
From the AHA:
“Protein: You don’t need to eat foods from animals to have enough protein in your diet. Plant proteins alone can provide enough of the essential and non-essential amino acids, as long as sources of dietary protein are varied and caloric intake is high enough to meet energy needs.
Whole grains, legumes, vegetables, seeds and nuts all contain both essential and non-essential amino acids. You don’t need to consciously combine these foods (“complementary proteins”) within a given meal.”
Other reasons to be vegan:
“Are vegetarian diets healthful?
Most vegetarian diets are low in or devoid of animal products. They’re also usually lower than nonvegetarian diets in total fat, saturated fat and cholesterol. Many studies have shown that vegetarians seem to have a lower risk of obesity, coronary heart disease (which causes heart attack), high blood pressure, diabetes mellitus and some forms of cancer.”
http://www.heart.org/HEARTORG/GettingHealthy/NutritionCenter/Vegetarian-Diets_UCM_306032_Article.jsp
Please keep us posted on your progress of getting off the junk food.
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