This test screens for high blood pressure.

One in three adults in the United States has high blood pressure. The available treatments and methods for dealing with high blood pressure are numerous. Diagnosis of high blood pressure, or hypertension, will allow your doctor to provide you with a number of ways to combat the disease before it becomes a serious problem. If undiagnosed and untreated, hypertension directly increases risk of heart attack, heart failure, and stroke, and also greatly increases the risk of kidney damage or failure, vision loss, and brain damage. There is some controversy on how often to screen. If your prior blood pressure was borderline elevated, you may need to be checked annually. Check with your doctor.

In the simplest blood pressure test an inflatable cuff is placed around your upper arm. It is inflated to apply pressure to the arm and then is slowly deflated. Measurements are taken of your systolic and diastolic blood pressures. A single test can only tell a limited amount about your actual blood pressure. Routine screening of your blood pressure is vital to obtaining useful results.

Your baseline blood pressure should be taken in a quiet, resting state.

• Male
• Race: African-American
• Alcoholism
• High salt diet
• Anxiety/stress
• Diabetes
• Renal disease
• Obesity
• Family history
• Smoking