Many over-65s are targeted for a drug to lower their blood pressure – but researchers have discovered that it naturally falls as we get older. This suggests that drugs could combine with the ageing process to produce hypotension – low blood pressure – that can result in fainting and dizzy spells.
Doctors have assumed that blood pressure rises as we get older, and so prescribe antihypertensive drugs as a just-in-case measure. But researchers from University College London have discovered that blood pressure rises during four phases of our life. While it rises for a while when we reach our late 50s or so, it then falls naturally.
It also rises when we are adolescents, again when we are young adults, followed by an acceleration in our 40s and finally in our late 50s, before declining naturally.
In a recent Special Report, WDDTY revealed that blood pressure changes during the day, that doctors often misread pressure levels, and that the definition of ‘dangerous’ levels have changed over the years.
See: http://www.wddty.com/high-pressure-salesmen.html
(Source: PLoS Med, 2011; 8: e1000440).
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