Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
Hello, everybody. Welcome to Health Shatter. And our show today is on the new blood pressure guidelines. And we have a lot to talk about. We have a great guest with us, Dr. Steve Kopecky, who's actually been on our show previously talking about cardiovascular disease and risk factors and lifestyle interventions. But he's with us today as well. So we'll introduce him in just a second.
As always, I like to recognize our gang that's part of our Health Chatter team. Maddie Levine-Wolf, Aaron Collins, Deandra Howard, Matthew Campbell, Sheridan Nygaard are second to none. These shows would not be successful without them. They do background research. They do our production. They transcribe.
the shows for our website in case you on the listening audience would rather read the shows as opposed to listen to them. That's available on our website. So thank you to all of you. Everybody is just super. Clarence Jones, we've been chatting a while now on all these health chatter shows.
Chapter 2: What are the new blood pressure guidelines?
And we must be doing something right because we keep doing it, and people are interested. And so thank you, Clarence. And then, of course, Dr. Barry Baines is our medical advisor, keeps us honest. He crosses the T's and dots the I's when it comes to some of the medical issues, whereby Clarence and I come at it with a public health hat, Barry provides the medical hat for our show.
So thank you to you as well, Barry. So today, Dr. Steve Kopecky. Steve and I go back a ways. When I headed up the cardiovascular unit at the Minnesota Department of Health, Steve was the chair of our committee, our statewide committee on addressing cardiovascular disease and was a wonderful, wonderful chair. And we've maintained contact since then. He's a great colleague and friend.
He's a consultant and chair of education in the division of preventive cardiology at Mayo Clinic. in Rochester, Minnesota. Serves as the director of Familial Hypocholesterolemia Statin Intolerance Clinic, which is also a particular subject that we might want to talk about somewhere down the line. You know, statin intolerance addressing cholesterol issues.
Has been at the Mayo Clinic since 1989, so he's a fixture there.
Mm-hmm.
But he's a wonderful speaker, has done a lot of writing, books, publications, and is a true expert in cardiovascular disease. So when the new blood pressure guidelines came out, what's it been, about a month or so, a little over a month? I said, okay, in my mind I asked, is this going to provide –
provide us all with a little bit more confusion um and uh and therefore let's make sure that we don't get confused and we address all the aspects of blood pressure and so nobody is better at it than um than steve so steve thank you thanks for thanks for having me yeah yeah it's It's fun. It's nice to see you for sure. So, all right.
You know, to be honest with you, there are so many questions around all of this. So let's start with these new guidelines. So the new guidelines are basically saying, you know, different levels of high blood pressure. And, you know, to be honest with you, embedded in my mind, you know, for years was the idea of, okay, well, The normal blood pressure is 120 over 80. Thank you very much. All right.
So give us your perspective on these new guidelines and what it means going forward.
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Chapter 3: How can lifestyle changes impact blood pressure?
Their body weight is normal. They get good sleep. They eat healthy. We're talking about maybe less than 2% of the population.
I'm liking this because I'm in one of those two numbers that you just named. And so I was like, OK, because, you know, again, when we hear these numbers like it's 120 over 80, I'm like, mine never is like that.
Yeah. Well, the other thing is you have to be low risk. And by the calculator, you know, the permit calculator is P-R-E-V-E-N-T is the one that the new guidelines use. And once you get to be if you're a man age 63, now you look like you're about 40. Clarence.
Thank you. Thank you.
Once you get to 63, your risk is going to be high enough that, you know, you, you would not be able to do that, that 140 thing. You need to be closer down to 120. The other group is the people have had a stroke. There are certain strokes that the neurologist actually wants your blood pressure to be a little bit higher.
It's okay to be a little bit higher and that you've got to talk with your, you know, your doctor about.
Okay, great. I appreciate that. Thank you.
Barry, what do you think? No, this is all good. I have a few questions for Steve. Number one is, you know, 50% of people as you get older have some level of hypertension, of high blood pressure. And I know if me and some of my friends who happen to be physicians as well.
Uh, one of the things that we've noted is the changing blood pressure recommendations and the bottom line, you know, really seems to be lower is better. And I think that's, you know, Steve, what you had had emphasized. Um, And you sort of address the idea of when you check your blood pressure. So I have two questions.
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Chapter 4: What is the importance of measuring blood pressure at home?
So Clarence, you work with the African-American population a lot in the community. Are you seeing... a lot of people with high blood pressure?
Yeah, and I think I would say I work with a lot of different living groups. But yeah, when I do talk about the African-American community, and Dr. Kopecky would know this, with Dr. LaPrincess Brewer and the faith community, we actually are going into churches. and, uh, uh, working with community members around high blood pressure, because it is, it is a problem.
It is an issue, uh, that is often, um, not really, really addressed. And so, uh, yeah, it, it, it is an issue, uh, and it is something that's often talked about, but I, I, what I, what I really love about this conversation is that there's so many, um, helpful tips. I don't know if you, Dr. Kopecky, I don't know if you even realize this.
I've been looking up that YACA thing, whatever that thing was that you mentioned. And I felt like, man, this is a great tool for me as a community health person to be able to have. I mean, you got to pay for it, you know, but at least what I've seen. But I think the thing that it shows are the kinds of things that we need to be having because it talks about, you know, reading labels.
It talks about the cholesterol, I mean, the sodium in a product or something like that. And I think that that's something that... Thank you. That was going to be my ending comment about thank you because you're talking about apps like, man, this is something that will really help me to help others to address this issue around blood pressure. So, Sam, I don't know if I answered your question.
Yeah, you know, I also want to mention to our listening audience that Clarence and I initiated in the state of Minnesota, although it didn't start here, where we worked with barbers. in barbershops where we would train the barbers on how to take their clients' blood pressure. And, you know, simple thing.
And if they got their blood pressure taken, you know, they'd get, you know, $5 off on their, on their haircut or whatever. But even that becomes a community oriented initiative where you realize that you don't have to deal with this all by yourself. I mean, others can help you. And I, and I think that that's an important component to this as well.
But, but I think, I think, I think again, this, this conversation is so important to have because people talk about blood pressure in a variety of different ways and, you know, in, in different kinds of conversations. And I think that today is a,
you know, especially helpful for me in terms of a factor of what you're talking about, because it really is helping to reshape some of the ways in which I will approach the community in talking about this issue. You know, I mean, even talking about the, you know, 140 over 80, I mean, just those different, that different kind of conversation will help people to make more informed choices.
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