Dr. Sanjay Gupta

And that is a very good marker.

It tells you that that number is too high for that patient.

The problem we have is we have this kind of value and everyone says, oh, a blood pressure of 140 over 90 is high.

Treat it, treat it.

But we're all different.

So that number in a 90-year-old has very different connotations to a 20-year-old and someone who's an athlete compared to someone who is elderly and very frail.

You can't treat them in the same way.

The benefit-risk ratio of medications changes based on who that patient is.

So the two numbers that we commonly measure blood pressure with is a systolic number, a top number and a diastolic number, which is the bottom number.

The systolic pressure is the highest pressure your blood vessels are exposed to and is the pressure which happens when the heart is actually pumping blood out into the vessels.

So if I had a balloon, for example, the systolic would be me blowing into the balloon and that pressure is the systolic pressure.

The diastolic pressure is if I then put my fingers at the end of that balloon

there's still a pressure which is being exerted by the recoil of that balloon onto the thing.

So if I let my hand go, the balloon flies off because of this pressure.

That is the diastolic pressure.

So the systolic pressure tells you about the heart rate, about how much blood is coming out of the heart, and it tells you about the capacity of the blood vessels to accommodate that pressure.

The diastolic pressure is all about elastic recoil of the blood vessels, so it tells you about the health of your blood vessels.

It has nothing to do with the heart, etc., etc.

The question then is, which is more important?

And the systolic is more important in terms of treatment because it is the higher pressure.