Dr. Sanjay Gupta

If your blood vessels can tolerate a pressure of 140, then we shouldn't really be too worried about a pressure of 100 because it is a lower pressure.

And the way the pressure damages you is the higher the value, the more likely you're going to get damaged.

However, the diastolic does tell you a little bit about the health of your blood vessels.

So when it comes to treating, lifestyle will help both.

Medications tend to just lower the pressure.

And that is the difference.

So the systolic blood pressure is more important in terms of the harm the number does to you.

But both values tell you a little bit about what's going on in your body.

I don't believe that high blood pressure or low blood pressure is a bunch of numbers.

It is what that number is doing to that patient, which is very much aligned with what you guys do, individualized medicine.

High blood pressure is blood pressure that does that patient harm.

It's not a number.

But if a 90-year-old comes to me with a blood pressure of 150 over 90, I wouldn't automatically rush in and say, oh, here, you know, you must take a tablet, etc.

In fact, doing that will just raise that person's blood pressure further.

So I would say, hey, look, you know, you're here.

You are 90 years old.

The more important thing in your case...

is quality of life, not, oh, I'll give you a tablet and suddenly guarantee that you'll live till 95.

But this is what is happening these days because we've become so protocolized, we're so guideline-centered, we're not patient-centered anymore.

In my practice, what I am interested in is taking that in the context of that patient and then working out how you bring those numbers down in as natural a way as possible