Why is it important to measure blood pressure in both arms?

1

A study showed that measuring blood pressure in both arms and using the upper index as a baseline will more accurately help determine the state of health. And this is extremely important for the diagnosis and treatment of hypertension.

Current recommendations advise people to measure blood pressure several times with an interval of one minute from the left arm, while the average value should be considered as objective as possible. However, no serious scientific studies have been conducted to confirm the wisdom of this advice. And so scientists from the British University of Exeter conducted such a study, which showed that it is much smarter to read a person's pressure not with one hand, but with two. At the same time, the highest result of the three, made at certain intervals, should be considered as objective as possible, that is, be oriented towards it.

In Ukraine, almost half of adult residents have hypertension or high blood pressure. It is considered so if the systolic pressure reading or the upper number exceeds 130 mm of mercury, and the diastolic reading exceeds 80. High blood pressure is a risk factor for heart disease, especially strokes. New, revised and more detailed guidelines for measuring blood pressure have emerged, which state that it is better to take blood pressure readings from both arms when examining a patient in the clinic. And the hand, where the indicators are higher, will later be made the main one for such measurements.

The new study analyzed the medical records of more than 53,000 adult patients with an average age of 60 years. It turned out that 12% of people who already have hypertension did not know that they had this pathology, because they read the pressure only from the left hand and were guided by this average of several readings.