Professor Sarah Berry

And how many of us today in the Western world are sort of higher than that range?

Will everyone who has high blood pressure have symptoms and therefore know that something is going wrong?

That does not sound good.

I think I now understand anything that's called the silent killer is something that clearly I don't want to have.

I think we understand now that this can be really serious condition, that also that there's nuance beyond just like one single number and that it's really common.

I'd love to understand what causes the high blood pressure because I assume that my six-year-old daughter probably does not have high blood pressure and that most of the people who come to see you also when they were six years old did not.

So this is something that develops over time.

The only thing I know about is somehow eating lots of salt is supposed to be bad.

I think that's what I grew up being told and being very stressed.

Is that the answer?

What are the key things that are most likely in our modern world to lead to high blood pressure?

What about our gut microbiome?

Sir, I know you've done some research on this.

What have you found?

And Sanjay, is that why you were saying things aren't working in terms of treating high blood pressure?

Is this what you're saying?

So the current treatment for blood pressure isn't actually reducing the heart attacks and the dementia and these other sorts of things you've been talking about.

So I would love to switch here actually into there for what people can do, because I think lots of listeners like me are probably coming away saying, well, this high blood pressure thing sounds quite serious.

I'd like to know what I can do to not just lower my number, it sounds like, of blood pressure, but actually lower my risk of having these heart attacks and strokes and so on.

How would you advise me to get that sort of one good reading to see whether or not I should be worried about this?