Exactly What Do We Mean When We Talk About Normal Arterial Blood Pressure?

By: Donald Saunders

Our blood pressure is constantly changing and it is very rare for an individual to have a blood pressure reading that is constant. Almost everything we do will have an affect on our blood pressure which will move up and down as we go about our normal day to day business. Simple things such as mowing the lawn, eating, watching television, standing up, taking a shower, walking the dog, sleeping, sitting and almost anything else you can think of can affect your blood pressure.

While variations in our blood pressure are nothing more than a simple fact of life it can however create difficulties for your doctor who needs to make use of blood pressure as a monitor of your general health. The challenge is therefore to try to establish a level of blood pressure which we can consider to be a normal average and then establish limits above and below this value which will represent the range of normal blood pressure fluctuation. A good point at which to start is to examine the pressure in the arteries of the body when the heart is pumping blood to the various organs of the body.

The blood carries oxygen and a host of nutrients to all parts of the body through a network of blood vessels beginning with the main aorta carrying blood from the heart and ending in a multitude of tiny capillaries.

The first consideration therefore is exactly how high a pressure is required in the aorta when the blood leaves the heart if it is going to reach its destination in distant parts of the body.

Thereafter, the second consideration is how high a pressure is required in the capillaries to transfer oxygen and nutrients into the tissues of the body.

Careful study over a number of years shows that the ideal arterial pressure to deliver blood to all areas of the body and to enable the movement of oxygen and nutrients into the tissues of the body is 120 mm Hg. This value represents the average blood pressure when the heart is pumping blood around the body and is normally called your systolic pressure.

like many things in life however a pressure slightly below or above this figure will not make a lot of difference and the body will still function well enough. However, when the blood pressure rises too high or falls too low then you are going to start to run into difficulty.

So just what are the upper and lower limits within which the average person should be able to continue operating normally?

Here things become a bit blurred and the answer varies from one person to the next. Nevertheless in general the upper limit for blood pressure in most individuals will be about 140 mg Hg and the lower limit will be in the region of 90 mg Hg.

Possibly the most important point at which to start however is to establish the figure which is right for you and which takes into account such things as your age and general health as well as your lifestyle. Having agreed this figure with your physician it is then simply a matter of monitoring you blood pressure.

TheBloodPressureCenter.com provides advice on all aspects of blood pressure from the cause of high blood pressure to selecting an Omron blood pressure monitor

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