Dr. Steve Kopecky

Yeah, that's a great question.

And, you know, many times new guidelines come out because there's new data that shows, hey, we got to change how we're doing things.

Other times guidelines come out and say, you know,

We've known this data for many years, and we need to really reemphasize it.

And this guideline is a combination of both.

And the old things first, the things we've known, I mean, when I was in training, that was, you know, 35 years ago, the chair of hypertension here said the risk of heart attack and stroke go up above a top number of 115, and that has not changed.

it's still your risk goes up above a systolic of 115 millimeters of mercury.

But what has happened is the guidelines have started to go down, down, down in terms of where they want treatment started and what the goals should be for treatment.

And I have many patients come in and say, oh, doctor, my blood pressure is too low.

My systolic blood pressure is 112.

And I'll say, actually, that's not too low.

That's actually good.

And in fact, there's no such thing as too low of a blood pressure unless you get a light head when you stand up quickly.

The other thing the guidelines have done is say we need to be more aggressive in treating and getting the blood pressure down a little more.

You know, the...

Many times patients feel, well, my blood pressure is just a little bit high.

You know, it's 135.

You know, that's just a little bit high.

I don't need treatment.

Well, you know, you forget that the heart beats 100,000 times a day.