Beat High Blood Pressure
By: Steven Stiefel
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Strange, then, that most men don't sweat it when their body's most important gauge—blood pressure—rises into the red zone and stays there. "High blood pressure gives you a twofold to fourfold increase in your risk of stroke or heart attack," says Prediman K. Shah, M.D., director of cardiology at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, in Los Angeles. "And only about one-third of individuals with high blood pressure have it under some sort of control."
The problem is, most of us mistake the early stages of hypertension for completely normal blood pressure. In the past few years, 120/80 millimeters of mercury (mm Hg) went from being classified as healthy to "prehypertensive" by the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute. The target numbers are now 119/79 mm Hg or lower. To hit that target, and avoid a crash landing, let the steam out of the following "pressure cookers" one at a time.