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How Blood Pressure Works · Stuff You Should Know

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  Speaker 1: Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve Camray.
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  Speaker 1: It's ready. Are you welcome to stuff you should know
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  Speaker 1: from How Stuff Works dot Com? Stuff you should know
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  Speaker 1: is brought to you by Visa. We all have things
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  Speaker 1: we like to think about online fraud. Shouldn't do one
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  Speaker 1: of them, because with every purchase, Visa prevents, detects, and
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  Speaker 1: resolves online fraud safe Secure Visa. Hey, and welcome to
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  Speaker 1: the podcast. I'm Josh Clark Stafford or here at How
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  Speaker 1: Stuff Works dot Com with me, as always is Charles W. Bryant. Chuck.
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  Speaker 1: What's going on? It's good to be here, Josh as always. Yeah, Yeah,
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  Speaker 1: I'm feeling the same way, Chuck. I'm feeling that pretty good.
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  Speaker 1: So you guys might not know this, but Chuck always
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  Speaker 1: kind of keeps me abreast of current events, situations going
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  Speaker 1: on in the world. Would you have for me today, Chuck? Today, Josh,
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  Speaker 1: I have the cause of death results for legendary soulsinger
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  Speaker 1: Isaac Hayes. Yes, the man who scored Shaft died recently.
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  Speaker 1: I'm Jim. Yes he did. He died apparently while jogging
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  Speaker 1: on his treadmill, which is um very sad. Yes, and
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  Speaker 1: it looks like the cause of death is uh stroke
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  Speaker 1: because of high blood pressure. You know, that's funny that
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  Speaker 1: you bring that up, because I've been wanting to talk
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  Speaker 1: about high blood pressure also known as hypertension for a while. Lately.
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  Speaker 1: I'm feeling like this's a good opportunity to do it. Right, Yeah,
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  Speaker 1: let's do it. You know how stuff works. Stuff You
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  Speaker 1: should know. It's not always just fun and games. Sometimes
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  Speaker 1: we want to help people out with a little health advice. Agreed,
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  Speaker 1: So so let's do that, right, let's do it. Well, Chuck,
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  Speaker 1: this doesn't in any way, shape or form qualify me
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  Speaker 1: as any kind of medical professional. But I spent a
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  Speaker 1: trimester in E m T School. Do you know that
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  Speaker 1: about it? Yeah? Yeah, seriously, I had no idea I did, uh,
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  Speaker 1: and I was terrible at it um. For the final
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  Speaker 1: exam for the trimester, uh, the instructor brought in some
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  Speaker 1: of his former students who are now E m T
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  Speaker 1: s and they acted like they were suffering from some
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  Speaker 1: sort of uh terrible medical condition and we had to
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  Speaker 1: figure it out based on the symptoms. Right. Well, I
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  Speaker 1: am a terrible diagnostician. Um, I I landed a victim.
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  Speaker 1: I just made air quotes who was choking? And I
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  Speaker 1: treated her like a burn victim, um, and laid her down,
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  Speaker 1: and I think I started doing CPR or something on her.
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  Speaker 1: And I knew that I had completely missed the mark
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  Speaker 1: when she looked over at the instructor with this what
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  Speaker 1: the heck should I do now? Expression? And He's just like,
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  Speaker 1: keep going, keep going. She grabbed her throat and you
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  Speaker 1: thought that she had burned her neck pretty pretty much. Yeah, yeah,
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  Speaker 1: I failed miserably. Um, But there were a couple of
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  Speaker 1: things I learned. One of them was how important it
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  Speaker 1: is to take care of the old ticker. I mean,
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  Speaker 1: we're we're getting to be about that age, chuck. I
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  Speaker 1: hate to break it to you. I just reached thirty two.
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  Speaker 1: I'm very depressed about that. But five onto that, my friend. Yeah,
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  Speaker 1: so you're pushing forty now pushing, Yeah, and and neither
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  Speaker 1: one of us are in prime physical condition, right, I
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  Speaker 1: think that's a fair assessment. Yeah. Yeah, So I'm no triathlete, no,
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  Speaker 1: And I love bacon. I love it. I love it
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  Speaker 1: so much I can't even begin to tell you. But
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  Speaker 1: one of the problems with bacon is that fat that
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  Speaker 1: we eat and digest gets carried through the blood stream,
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  Speaker 1: and uh, it doesn't always break down like it should know.
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  Speaker 1: It starts to form plaque within blood vessels, which actually
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  Speaker 1: can lead to hypertension. And you want to know how well,
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  Speaker 1: first of all, I think we should just tell people
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  Speaker 1: what blood pressure is, period because people hear the blood
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  Speaker 1: pressure and they don't understand what it is. It's really simple.
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  Speaker 1: Blood pressure actually is all it is is the measurement
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  Speaker 1: of the force of the blood going through your arteries
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  Speaker 1: against the artery walls. Yeah, your your heart actually UM
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  Speaker 1: creates it generates an electrical impulse. The the electrical impulse
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  Speaker 1: travels across the heart and it's picked up by the atria,
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  Speaker 1: which is which contracts. Right, the blood is forced out
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  Speaker 1: of the heart and into the blood vessels. So there
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  Speaker 1: you've got. You've got your systolic pressure, which is the
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  Speaker 1: first number on a blood pressure reading, right, it's something
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  Speaker 1: over something and that's that's the first one, the one
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  Speaker 1: on top. And the optimal for systolic pressure I think
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  Speaker 1: is like one twenty for the average healthy adults once
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  Speaker 1: twenty year or under is what you're looking for right now.
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  Speaker 1: UM to measure this kind of thing, it's it's luckily right.
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  Speaker 1: We don't need trepid nation or any kind of rectal exam.
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  Speaker 1: You can just slap a blood pressure cuff on your arm,
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  Speaker 1: and thanks to our good friend Mercury, we can measure
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  Speaker 1: the pressure exerted on any given blood vessel. Is the
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  Speaker 1: blood car pumps through it? Right? And I I personally
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  Speaker 1: love those things when you get your blood pressure checked.
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  Speaker 1: Ever since I was a kid, I just thought when
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  Speaker 1: the when it constricts around your arm and tightens up
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  Speaker 1: and you can feel your heart beating in your arm,
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  Speaker 1: I just thought it was really neat. And chances are
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  Speaker 1: if you go to a grocery store a drug store,
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  Speaker 1: you might find me sitting at one of their little machines.
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  Speaker 1: It's a it's a great thing. It's a great way
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  Speaker 1: to pass the time. Yeah, but it's not. Actually, I
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  Speaker 1: did some research. It's not always the most accurate read.
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  Speaker 1: So people need to know this when they get their
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  Speaker 1: blood pressure checked by machine at your local Kroger. Uh.
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  Speaker 1: It may have been accurate when they first installed it,
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  Speaker 1: but it needs to be maintained and recalibrated over the years,
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  Speaker 1: so if it's not, it may be off you. You
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  Speaker 1: might can get a good idea that you should look
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  Speaker 1: into it further, but you shouldn't, you know, make any
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  Speaker 1: medical decisions based on what you uh, what you get
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  Speaker 1: when you're picking out your hot dog buttons and you're
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  Speaker 1: we we hear how stuff works. Strongly advise you to
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  Speaker 1: console the physician for just about anything, including blood pressure readings.
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  Speaker 1: But yeah, at the very least, it's it's kind of
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  Speaker 1: a joy to have your arms squeezed by a robot.
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  Speaker 1: You never know if if the thing's gonna go berserk
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  Speaker 1: and just snap your arm right off. I think, yeah,
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  Speaker 1: that's part of the fear, is that it will take
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  Speaker 1: on a mind of its own and sever my arm off. Yeah. Yeah,
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  Speaker 1: I think that's everybody's fear. So what about diastolic? That's
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  Speaker 1: the bottom number, right uh, And I think for a
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  Speaker 1: healthy adult eighties a good reading. Um so, the the
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  Speaker 1: the good blood pressure reading, a very healthy blood pressure
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  Speaker 1: reading is one eight. That bottom number represents what the
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  Speaker 1: normal relaxing or relaxed pressure on a vessel, uh is
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  Speaker 1: when the heart is at rest, when when the blood's
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  Speaker 1: not being four wors through. It's just you know, the
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  Speaker 1: hearts at rest blood vessels just sitting there like oh,
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  Speaker 1: I'm waiting for the next pump, you know. Uh, so
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  Speaker 1: eighties good? Um. And the thing is is those numbers
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  Speaker 1: can change just a little bit and make some really
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  Speaker 1: you know that it can be it can be really
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  Speaker 1: bad with just a couple of numbers being off. Right. Well,
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  Speaker 1: tell me more, Well, I will tell you more, Chuck.
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  Speaker 1: Let me tell you about the third kind of pressure reading.
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  Speaker 1: It's called pulse pressure. Uh. It's not uh necessarily widely
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  Speaker 1: accepted yet, although it's really gaining traction. So pulse pressure
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  Speaker 1: is just the difference between the systolic and diastolic pre
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  Speaker 1: pressure readings. Right, So if one twenty over eighty is
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  Speaker 1: optimal health for blood pressure reading, then forty would be
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  Speaker 1: the optimal pulse pressure. It's the difference when eighty got you.
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  Speaker 1: If it's uh, if it's a high, or if the
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  Speaker 1: difference is high, uh, you've got problems. It can mean
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  Speaker 1: that your your blood vessels are hardened, that they have
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  Speaker 1: lost elasticity. There's there's all sorts of problems with it.
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  Speaker 1: It can also mean that your heart is getting a
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  Speaker 1: little too buff. Hypertrophy, all right, buff in this case
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  Speaker 1: is not good. No, it's good for the bicep not
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  Speaker 1: good for the heart because an overly buff heart can
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  Speaker 1: can fail a lot more easily. Yeah, so we've got
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  Speaker 1: the pulse pressure difference, and and I read that every
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  Speaker 1: ten um millibars of mercury, which is the pressure reading difference,
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  Speaker 1: actually increases your chance of stroke by like eleven percent.
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  Speaker 1: So so it's important to keep an eye on your
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  Speaker 1: blood pressure and and to keep an eye on whether
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  Speaker 1: or not you're you're hypertensive or pre hypertensive. Um. And Uh, again,
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  Speaker 1: the best way to find that out is to just
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  Speaker 1: go visit your doctor regularly and get some blood pressure reading, right,
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  Speaker 1: because hypertension a k A. High blood pressure. There's pre
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  Speaker 1: high pertension, which you mentioned, which is before it's a
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  Speaker 1: real problem, but it's when you can really correct it
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  Speaker 1: with your diet and things like that. And then um,
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  Speaker 1: secondary hypertension and hypertension or when things get out of hand,
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  Speaker 1: when you're in danger of maybe a cardiac arrest or stroke. Uh.
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  Speaker 1: And then the other thing I want to talk about,
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  Speaker 1: which I thought was kind of interesting, was white coat hypertension.
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  Speaker 1: Give it to me, this sounds interesting. Yeah, this is when, uh,
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  Speaker 1: your your blood pressure actually elevates when you go to
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  Speaker 1: the doctor. Oh, from from being nervous. I'm not sure
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  Speaker 1: if it's from being nervous or not, but it's you
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  Speaker 1: have a different blood pressure. White coat obviously it's what
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  Speaker 1: the doctor wears and the doctor's office and you at home.
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  Speaker 1: And I guess you know, my easy answer would be
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  Speaker 1: don't come into doctor and you won't get high blood pressure.
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  Speaker 1: But that's that's no good advice. And you should also
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  Speaker 1: be wary of any doctor that doesn't wear a white coat, right, Yeah, yeah,
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  Speaker 1: that's that's good advice too. That is interesting. They've also
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  Speaker 1: found that um pregnant women can often demonstrate higher blood
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  Speaker 1: pressure just because of their pregnancy as well. It can
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  Speaker 1: be normal before the pregnancy, it can be high during
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  Speaker 1: the pregnancy, and then go back to normal afterwards. To
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  Speaker 1: the impression I got was that we didn't have a
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  Speaker 1: really good read on exactly why that happens. We just
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  Speaker 1: know it does happen, much like the white coat blood
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  Speaker 1: pressure exactly. And uh, I've got some other stats for
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  Speaker 1: you if you just want me to do. You know
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  Speaker 1: how I feel about stats, Chuck, don't tease me, give
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  Speaker 1: me to me. Well, uh, they did some studies on
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  Speaker 1: percentage of adults twenty years over that have high pertension
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  Speaker 1: or that are taking medication for hypertension. And overall thirty
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  Speaker 1: percent of men and women are following into that category,
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  Speaker 1: which really, yeah, which is more than I thought. Over
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  Speaker 1: twenty I would think that the maybe a stat over
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  Speaker 1: forty or fifth women come in and right at the
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  Speaker 1: thirty percent mark. Men a little bit less believed or
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  Speaker 1: not at pent and uh, the stat I thought was
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  Speaker 1: interesting is that poor people are thirty at thirty four percent,
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  Speaker 1: whereas non poor or twenty eight percent. Well, it makes
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  Speaker 1: a lot of sense, you know. Um the uh, the
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  Speaker 1: poor usually have less access to a healthy diet, right, Uh,
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  Speaker 1: usually less time to eat well or take care of
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  Speaker 1: themselves since they're working. Cheaper packaged foods and I are
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  Speaker 1: loaded with sodium and podium and salt. It's a big
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  Speaker 1: contributor to high blood pressure. So that kind of does
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  Speaker 1: make sense. Well, Chuck, why don't you tell us some
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  Speaker 1: ways that we can avoid hypertension? And if you have hypertension,
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  Speaker 1: I mean, what can you do? Well? Uh? Kind of
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  Speaker 1: like with everything else, the doctor tells you eat healthy,
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  Speaker 1: lose weight, lay off the salt, limit alcohol, and quit smoking. Yeah,
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  Speaker 1: and I looked into smoking. Uh, you know, it turns
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  Speaker 1: out that smoking I thought it would stimulate the heart
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  Speaker 1: and would wear it out faster. It turns out that
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  Speaker 1: doesn't happen. Smoking actually goes in and injures your blood vessels.
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  Speaker 1: That's how smoking can cause heart disease and hypertension, which
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  Speaker 1: I found interesting. But yeah, you want to stay away
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  Speaker 1: from the cigarettes, the cigars, any kind of smoking is
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  Speaker 1: going to be bad for your heart, right, And as
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  Speaker 1: far as your diet goes, they have something they recommend
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  Speaker 1: called the DASH diet d A s H stands for
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  Speaker 1: Dietary Approaches to Stopping Hypertension. And uh, what you want
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  Speaker 1: to eat is whole grains, poultry, fish, nuts. You want
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  Speaker 1: to limit fats and red meat. So not some much bacon, huh,
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  Speaker 1: not as much bacon, steak, stuff like that. Yeah, it's
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  Speaker 1: a nice it's a nice treat, but that shouldn't be
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  Speaker 1: your regular, agreed, chuck. So what happens if you do
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  Speaker 1: have hypertension? I mean obviously that there's a there's a
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  Speaker 1: lot of medications out there in the market for people
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  Speaker 1: who are hypertensive, right, Yeah, there's a lot of medications,
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  Speaker 1: but a lot of these have side effects too, so
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  Speaker 1: it depends on how higher blood pressure is as to
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  Speaker 1: whether or not a doctor thinks it's worth it to
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  Speaker 1: get on these meds um and potentially suffer some side effects.
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  Speaker 1: So it's a few points here and there. They'll probably
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  Speaker 1: recommend that you take care of it through diet and
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  Speaker 1: exercise if you have a real problem. Um, there's all
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  Speaker 1: kinds of anti hypertensive drugs, diuretics, uh, sympathetic inhibitors UH,
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  Speaker 1: calcium channel inhibitors, a C inhibitors, and you know they'll
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  Speaker 1: do a good job. But you know side effects like sedation, nightmares, depression, vertigo, uh,
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  Speaker 1: stuff like that. The effects. Yeah, my favorite side effect death. Yeah.
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  Speaker 1: I love it when they say that as pharmaceuticals. Well,
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  Speaker 1: you mentioned sympathetic inhibitors. Is that that would have to
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  Speaker 1: do with the sympathetic nervous system, right, Yeah, that would
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  Speaker 1: control your fight or flight response correct, right, which is
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  Speaker 1: something that we like to talk about under fight or
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  Speaker 1: flight response. Well, if you do have hypertension and you
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  Speaker 1: are being treated for it, take hope. I read somewhere
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  Speaker 1: that six of people who suffer from hypertension recover from it.
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  Speaker 1: They gain control of their blood pressure. It's goods. Go
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  Speaker 1: see your doctor, eat well, quit smoking, watch the booze
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  Speaker 1: all that, and Uh, if you want to learn a
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  Speaker 1: lot more about hypertension, read hypertension in depth on how
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  Speaker 1: stuff works dot com and stick around to find out
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