my

Don't ignore diastolic blood pressure

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there's word of caution for people being

treated for high blood pressure and I

need to give you a bit of a lesson first

in blood pressure there are two numbers

your systolic let's the top number like

you know you've told is 120 180 the top

number is the systolic pressure and

that's the pressure when your heart

beats the blood into your arteries the

bottom pressure is the diastolic

pressure and that's when the heart

relaxes the bottom number the diastolic

is important because that gives you the

background blood flow to your heart and

your brain now trial last year in people

at high risk of heart disease showed

that if you drive that top number the

systolic pressure down to about 120 or

lower you get significant benefits

particularly in stroke prevention but

probably also in preventing heart