Your smart watch may have the power to lower your high blood pressure

By MiNDFOOD

Mixed race woman resting at park bench and tracing pulse on smartwatch
Mixed race woman resting at park bench and tracing pulse on smartwatch

While a balanced diet, regular exercise, and a healthy lifestyle are all important in lowering blood pressure, new research hopes that wireless wearables will act as a ‘predictor’ when it comes to maintaining a stable blood pressure.

According to the Heart Foundation, blood pressure is the pressure of your blood on the walls of your arteries as your heart pumps it around your body. It’s a vital part of how your heart and circulation works. Your blood pressure naturally goes up and down all the time, depending on what you are doing. High blood pressure is when your blood pressure is persistently higher than normal. Blood pressure that’s high over a long time can lead to a heart attack or stroke. It can also affect your kidneys. Doctors can prescribe medication to lower blood pressure.

There are also things that you can control that affect blood pressure including the food you eat, how much alcohol you drink, your weight and your physical activity. 

Food

A healthy diet that mainly consists of whole grains, fruits, vegetables, fatty fish (like salmon) and low-fat dairy will help keep your blood pressure in a healthy range. Studies also show that olive oil, beetroot, and some dark chocolate are also good at lowering blood pressure. Food to avoid when you have high blood pressure include salt and foods high in salt like canned food, tomato products, deli meats and processed food.

Drink

The Heart Foundation recommends that healthy men and women drink no more than two standard alcoholic drinks a day. If you have high blood pressure, heart failure, cardiovascular disease, coronary heart disease, liver disease or diabetes, or if you are obese, you may need to drink less than the above-recommended limits.

Weight and exercise

Maintaining a healthy body weight and doing at least 30 minutes of moderate physical activity every day can help to reduce high blood pressure.

Pressure predictor

You don’t know you have high blood pressure unless you have it measured. There are no symptoms of high blood pressure, which is why it’s important to get it regularly checked by your GP. Also what works for one person when it comes to lowering blood pressure may not be as effective for someone else. However, researchers from the University of California have developed an algorithm to predict an individual’s blood pressure and provide personalised recommendations to lower it based on this data. 

When doctors tell their patients to make a lot of significant lifestyle changes – exercise more, sleep better, lower their salt intake etc. – it can be overwhelming, and compliance is not very high, said Professor Sujit Dey, co-author of the new research. For the study, Dey and co-author Po-Han Chiang collected sleep, exercise and blood pressure date from patients using a FitBit Charge HR and Omron Evolve wireless blood pressure monitor. Using the collected data, they developed an algorithm to predict the users’ blood pressure and show which particular health behaviours affected it most. The study affirmed the importance of personalised data over generalised information when lowering blood pressure. For example, one subject’s blood pressure was most affected by the number of minutes they were sedentary throughout the day. Changing that one factor had a significant impact. For another subject, the time they went to bed was the most important factor in lowering their blood pressure.

“This research shows that using wireless wearables and other devices to collect and analyze personal data can help transition patients from reactive to continuous care,” says Dey. “Instead of saying ‘My blood pressure is high therefore I’ll go to the doctor to get medicine,’ giving patients and doctors access to this type of system can allow them to manage their symptoms on a continuous basis.”

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