The Importance of Checking Your Blood Pressure and Cholesterol Often

We’re going to kick off this blog with a few eye-opening statistics and facts that make some important connections. 

To start, heart disease is the leading cause of death in the United States. Now let’s work backwards with this fact — the three major risk factors for heart disease are high blood pressure, which affects nearly half of adults in the US; high cholesterol, which affects about 11% of American adults; and smoking. 

Now let’s look at this from another angle — 90% of heart disease is preventable through diet, exercise, and quitting smoking, which are the three key steps toward improving your blood pressure and cholesterol levels.

The reason why board-certified cardiologist Dr. Satjit Bhusri and the team at Upper East Side Cardiology feel it’s important to paint this statistical picture is to underscore the importance of regular blood pressure and cholesterol screening. In terms of preventive cardiology, these simple screenings can help chart a much healthier course for your life.

How hypertension affects your cardiovascular health

Let’s start with high blood pressure, or hypertension, since it’s more prevalent than the other risk factors for heart disease.

A blood pressure reading measures the force of blood against the walls of your arteries during and in between heartbeats, which is why there are two numbers. Any reading of 130/80 or higher is considered high blood pressure, whereas readings of 120/80 or lower are better.

The reason why you want lower blood pressure is that if the pressure is high, it can damage the linings of your arteries, making them more susceptible to stiffening and narrowing, which places you at greater risk for heart attack and stroke.

How cholesterol affects your cardiovascular health

Cholesterol readings are a bit trickier than blood pressure because we’re measuring three different things:

1. High-density proteins (HDLs)
2. Low-density proteins (LDLs)
3. Triglycerides

Each of these is a lipid, and you want the right balance. For example, you want higher numbers of HDLs, which carry off LDLs. This is beneficial because if you have high levels of LDLs in your bloodstream, you’re at risk for developing plaques in your blood vessels that block the flow of blood. Not to mention, plaques can break off and form dangerous blood clots.

So, total cholesterol readings of 240 mg/dL or higher are considered to be high cholesterol, but you can also have levels below this number. If those are in the wrong proportions, your HDL numbers are too low and may be insufficient to regulate your LDLs. So, striking the right lipid balance is key to preventing heart disease.

Screening for high blood pressure and cholesterol imbalances

The first step in any heart disease prevention plan is to have a good handle on your risk factors, which means regular screenings for high blood pressure and any imbalance in your cholesterol numbers.

The good news is that these screenings are easy. Measuring your blood pressure takes us only minutes with a cuff, and you’ll feel no pain at all.

To measure your lipid (cholesterol) levels, we draw some blood and send it to a lab for quick results.

Armed with these numbers, which are predictors of sorts, we can take steps to improve them, if needed, through lifestyle changes such as diet and exercise, as well as medications that lower blood pressure and control cholesterol. These steps can be potentially life-saving, all because you took the time to understand and measure your risk factors.

To make sure your blood pressure and cholesterol numbers are up to date, please contact our New York City office on the Upper East Side of Manhattan. Call our team at 212-752-3464 or request information online.