#258 – AMA #48: Blood Pressure—how to Measure, Manage, and Treat High Blood Pressure

Measuring with a manual cuff Video: How to measure blood pressure using a manual monitor (View Highlight)

Sodium • The role of sodium on BP is a bit controversial • It is safe to say that there is pretty significant heterogeneity in the population here—there probably are some people that are more sensitive to dietary sodium from a blood pressure perspective than others • We talked about this with Rick Johnson, who’s a nephrologist, and his take was:  • Salt plays a role, but the effect of salt to raise blood pressure is blunted by drinking water with or before a salty meal • He points out that if you’re getting thirsty with a salty meal, it means you’ve already raised sodium, and you’re probably also getting a increase in blood pressure • It’s really about pairing water prior to a salty meal • So salt sensitivity is sort of a quantitative trait in which an increase in oral sodium can disproportionately increase blood pressure (View Highlight)

As far as duration and intensity goes, the takeaway of this meta-analysis was that at least 90 to 150 minutes a week at somewhere between 65 and 75% of your maximum heart rate was the sweet spot (View Highlight)

Isometric resistance training (i.e., not using weights) • This type of exercise showed even a greater reduction in systolic blood pressure than dynamic resistance training—about six millimeters of mercury, and diastolic of about three millimeters of mercury (View Highlight)