HIGH BLOOD PRESSURE

Evening Star, Issue 21881, 19 November 1934, Page 1

HIGH BLOOD PRESSURE

WHEN HOT AH ALARM SIGNAL It is only within comparatively re. cent years that the term blood pressure has passed into what may be called popular medical coinage. It has also become the subject of mutual inquiries and discussions among many middleaged and elderly people (writes tho medical correspondent of the London ‘Daily Telegraph’). It is being increasingly felt that at the present moment all figures used in calculations are too recently based upon too uncertain a foundation of exact knowledge to betaken as final. The accumulating experience of cardiologists and other medical observers has already shown, how great are the variations of blood-pressure, not only in the same individual, but between persons who aro otherwise apparently normal in health.. Emotion, activity, even certain articles of diet and drink, will often suffice in a perfectly healthy man and woman to raise the blood-pressure many degrees. The very act, indeed, of having it registered may be enough to_ raise it very considerably, and for, this reason a single reading in an unaccustomed person should never be relied upon. It has further been the experience of almost every practising physician to have observed patients leading a vigorous life—often for an indefinite number of years—with a bloodpressure so high that a generation ago it would have seemed to portend an imminent collapse. RELATION TO DISEASE. In certain cases, of course, a persistently high blood-pressure may be the, obvious accompaniment of organio disease, in the shape of a failing heart, or ineffectively acting kidneys, or of arteries _ that have been thickened by. the toxic products of prolonged overeating, over-drinking, or sundry chronio infections. It may even, apart from these, be associated with more or less severe headaches and occasional attacks of giddiness; and in such cases it is always wise to take common-sense precautions. Violent exercise should ba avoided, and, if possible, mental and emotional strain. The diet should ba sparing within the • limits of necessary nutrition, and the consumption >of alcohol cut down to a minimum.

But for the rest it may be said that a high blood-pressure per se need not necessarily be a cause of undue anxiety. It may be perfectly compatible with a full and. free life; and its mere discovery in the absence of any other indications of bodily discomfort, should not, as it often has done, give rise to a crippling alarm. If it is accepted as a gentle indication towards the temperance, of habit that should always bo the, rule in middle and old ape, it may even be welcomed "gr a blessing.