What is a Normal Blood Pressure by Age?
High blood pressure, or hypertension, does not always present with symptoms. You may have high blood pressure and feel perfectly fine. That is why it is important to regularly monitor your blood pressure to ensure you are within normal levels.
Your blood pressure reading includes a top number and bottom number. The top number is your systolic reading. This is the pressure blood exerts against artery walls when the heart contracts or beats. The bottom number is the diastolic reading. This measures the force against your artery walls when the heart is relaxed or between beats.
Your blood pressure will fluctuate throughout the day depending on changes in posture, stress, sleep, and exercise. Regardless of fluctuations, your blood pressure on average should remain less than 120/80 mm Hg.
Here are blood pressure categories as defined by the American Heart Association.
Normal blood pressure: <120 / 80 mm Hg
Prehypertension – 120-139 / 80 -89 mm Hg
Stage 1 High Blood Pressure – 140-159 / 90-99 mm Hg
Stage 2 High Blood Pressure – >160 / 100 mm Hg
Hypertensive Crisis – >180 / 110 mm Hg (seek emergency care)
Prehypertension increases your risk for developing high blood pressure. If you have prehypertension, this is an ideal time to assess your diet and lifestyle choices and implement changes to lower levels. Continue reading
What is Your Biological Age?
Do you watch the Biggest Loser? If so, you have seen each contestant visit a doctor at the start of the season and many times they’ll learn their actual ‘biological’ age. This usually ends up being a shocker, such as a 28 year-old whose physical condition is that of a 55 year-old or something drastic like that. Telomeres are a tool that can be used to fairly accurately identify your biological age.
I recently participated in a webinar hosted by Spectra Cell Laboratories and lead by Dr. Mark Houston discussing telomeres.
What is a telomere?
Telomeres are a DNA sequence that appears at the end of each chromosome. Chromosomes comprised of DNA are in each cell of our body. Our DNA is protected at each end by telomeres. Dr. Houston describes a telomere as a safety cap or ball cap on the end of each chromosome. They protect the chromosome and DNA from things like oxidative stress. As the telomere becomes damaged the chromosome and cell function ineffectively the cell begins to die.
Telomere Shortening
As a normal part of aging, telomeres become shorter. Once a telomere becomes shortened there is no way to lengthen the telomere.
There are many factors that influence how quickly telomeres shorten. Here are some of the factors that impact telomere length:
Benefit to Being Overweight and Over 70
New research indicates using body mass index (BMI) as a tool to measure health risk in older individuals may not be so accurate.
What is BMI
Body mass index is calculated using an individual’s height and weight. Weight in kilograms is divided by height in centimeters squared. BMI is frequently used to assess overall health. The World Health Organization established four BMI categories:
