Pulse Pressure Significance

[hefner33]

Hi. I have been doing some reading around BP (mainly around BP variability) and came across a bunch of writings on the subject about pulse pressure and its signifiance on our health. From what I have read, mainly pubmd and uptodate, pulse pressure can be a good indicator of problems or healthy. They state that "normal" is 30-40mmhg usually going by the standard 120/80. Some have said its a better indicator of cardiac problems than just your normal bp readings in themselves. Where I get confused is some could have a healthy blood pressure readings and have a higher pulse pressure than someone that is pre-hyper or hyper.

So if you take someone that has a blood pressure avg of 140/100, technically they are 40 pulse pressure. Take some thats avg 115/60 thats a pulse pressure of 55

Also I read that if you have a really good diastolic reading but your systolic is far off varies from high low often then this is a marker.

Kinda weird but not sure I see where a good correlation is with it.

Any one more educated with this?

[markmsn10]

Most pulse pressure studies are only concerned is the pressure is greater than 60.   Under 60 is considered normal unless diastolic drops below 60 with higher than 120 systolic.

[hefner33]

Thanks Mark.

Makes more sense cause it seems two fold

[markmsn10]

Pulse pressure is really a hard concept to grasp and not really useful unless marked differences bring up questions.   For example-- a person with white coat anxiety can have a blood pressure of 180/90 = Pulse pressure of 90.  Where as somebody who just exercised (Systolic rises and diastolic falls slightly due to normal blood vessel dilation) will get a blood pressure of say 160/80 with a pulse pressure of 80.   Even at rest-- you can get high systolic (isolated systolic hypertension) due to secondary or again any type of anxiety you would expect to see pulse pressure between 50-80.   Most pulse pressure studies in healthy individuals will show an average of around 50 (not the 30-40) they typically believe.