A new study shows that how and where your blood pressure (BP) is measured can make a big difference in the results.
The review, published in the Annals of Internal Medicine, found that readings taken using different methods can vary quite a lot—enough to affect medical decisions.
The study was led by Dr. Jiunn-Tyng Yeh and his team at Taipei Veterans General Hospital in Taiwan.
They reviewed data from 65 studies involving over 40,000 people. Their goal was to compare different ways of measuring blood pressure during office visits and at home.
Here’s what they found: compared to carefully controlled “research office” measurements, other common methods gave very different readings. For example, blood pressure was:
2.7 mm Hg higher when measured during a regular office visit
4.6 mm Hg lower using automated machines in the office
4.6 mm Hg lower using a home monitor
4.2 mm Hg lower during daytime with a wearable ambulatory monitor
8.6 mm Hg lower over a full 24-hour ambulatory period
18.1 mm Hg lower during nighttime with a wearable monitor
These differences matter. For example, a person might appear to have high blood pressure during a typical doctor’s visit but show normal readings at home or overnight. That could lead to being misdiagnosed or treated unnecessarily.
The researchers also found that the differences in readings got bigger when the person’s actual blood pressure was higher. This means that the more serious the hypertension, the more likely it is that the reading depends on how the test is done.
Because of this, the authors suggest that current blood pressure guidelines should be reviewed. “We showed that the differences among BP measurement methods are not fixed, but instead depend on the underlying systolic and diastolic BP,” they wrote.
This study highlights the importance of choosing the right method to measure blood pressure. For doctors and patients, it may mean relying more on multiple readings or using ambulatory and home monitors for more accurate results.
If you care about blood pressure, please read studies that widely used blood pressure drug may increase eye disease risk and common blood pressure drugs linked to cognitive decline.
For more about blood pressure, please read studies about why checking blood pressure while lying down is very important and lowering top blood pressure number to less than 120 mm Hg effectively prevents heart disease.
The study is published in Annals of Internal Medicine.
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