Question on Blood Pressure: What Should be the Normal Pressure
What is considered a normal blood pressure reading depends on a number of factors like the environment, gender, age, and some other variables; however, the optimum variable to realistically take is age. Age throws up three sets of values for what is considered a normal blood pressure reading. Children have a much lower blood pressure reading than adults, and older individuals have a much higher blood pressure than is considered normal for adults. The reason for the difference between adults and older individuals despite having the same body mass is because of the loss in flexibility of the blood vessels.
Pressure measurements are usually a single measurement that measures the force applied on a specified area. In the case of human blood pressure, the same applies but the cardiac cycle is considered. When the heart draws in blood, this is called the diastolic cycle and to perform this, the heart doesn’t have to exert too much pressure, so this forms the “lower” reading called the diastolic reading. The other action is the action of pushing blood out of the heart and this is called the systolic cycle. This takes a considerably larger effort from the heart and exerts greater pressure; therefore, this is the “higher” reading called the systolic reading. Now, you have probably noticed that normally, these readings are taken with a measuring instrument with a strap around your arm or otherwise. The reason for this is that the pressure that is exerted by the heart can be felt on the blood vessels and the best measure to use is the one closest to the left side of the body on the arm.
To the point of what constitutes a normal blood pressure, till very recently most readings that were in the region 120 systolic and 80 diastolic (usually pronounced 120 over 80) was considered normal, give or take a few in the systolic. Systolic pressures that crossed the 130 and were close to the 140 mark was considered to be high and required investigation if the conditions of measurement were satisfied and the patient was at rest. Lower systolic pressures were less tolerable and any reading below 75 was considered to be worth investigating. However, extensive studies and population samples have finally revealed that despite all the regional, gender, and other differences in human beings the range of what constitutes a normal pressure rading is the range of between 119 to 90 in the systolic and 79 to 60 for diastolic. Normal average is now considered to be a reading of 112 over 64.
