Manage Your Blood Pressure

Here's how to keep or bring your numbers down.

- GINA WAY

It's one of those conditions that sneak up on you—more than half of U.S. adults with uncontrolled high blood pressure don't know they have it, recent research shows. When left untreated, high BP (also called hypertension) can raise the risk of cardiac events such as heart attack and stroke and other health problems like kidney damage, early cognitive decline, and dementia. “High blood pressure, in most cases, is asymptomatic,” says Lawrence Phillips, M.D., a cardiologist and an assistant professor of medicine at NYU Langone Health. “People don’t feel that they have it, which is why regular screening is so important.” Doctors check your blood pressure as a matter of course during most routine medical exams and urgent care visits because it's a critical indicator of your overall health.

Blood pressure is the force of your blood against the walls of your arteries, and it is expressed as two numbers: The top one (systolic blood pressure) represents the force against the artery walls when your heart beats; the bottom number (diastolic blood pressure) is that pressure between heartbeats. (A reading above 130/80 mmHg signals high blood pressure, according to the American Heart Association.) High BP forces the heart to work harder to pump blood throughout your body and can damage heart muscle and blood vessels over time.