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Comment by Tharkun | Hacker News Reader

So I recently found out I'm one of those many people with high blood pressure. This knowledge has been stressing me out (I don't want to die yet).

I'm reasonably active as far as software engineers go: 10k+ steps daily and exercise 2-3 times/week.

My BMI is 28, which is in the overweight category, but I carry a fair amount of muscle along with my flab.

My diet is the hardest part to control. I live alone and spend a lot of time at the office, so I often eat takeout Chinese and other convenience food.

My point is that a lot of us HN-y folks probably lead comparable lifestyles. The kind that we may think aren't too unhealthy, but for at least some of us, that assumption is wrong. Please keep an eye on your blood pressure and your waistline. I wish I had started paying attention to this much sooner. Now I'm not sure whether I can still reverse the outcome.

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but I carry a fair amount of muscle along with my flab

Is this honest truth? Ever step on one of those body composition scales? I used to tell myself when I was super skinny that, hey, at least what I did have was muscle and I wasn't weak. But it was not true, there was very little muscle, and I was weak as hell. I was like 18% BF at a BMI of 17. It's one of those pernicious lies we tell ourselves that we want to believe because they make us feel better about ourselves.

I have been diagnosed with borderline high bp (around 140/90, sometimes a bit lower, sometimes higher) 5 years ago and tried everything to reverse it, as the Doctor did not want to put me on meds so early. Lost 10kg (BMI 23.5), 60km of cycling a week, 2x exercise a week, reasonably good diet, no smoking, little alcohol.

From all those measures my BP did not improve a lot, the systolic is nowadays mostly okay, but i seem to have a problem with the diastolic bp which is often in the 90-95 range. Right now i am undergoing more checks again and will probably resort to meds now, which i wanted to avoid (which otherwise healthy, fit 35 year old wants to start taking bp meds) but it seems like i can't and i don't want to damage myself more than i already have.

Until now, no real cause has been found, it could even be some nervous disorder because of high stress times i had in the past, but nobody knows. I also have no family history of high bp, so it still puzzles me and freaks me out to the point i got an underlying anxiety.

If losing weight etc. does not help much, also get your kidneys and thyroid checked. I have some kidney checks coming up and it freaks me out...

The good thing is that it made me a lot more conscious of what i eat, drink and do, i just wish i would have monitored it earlier because i don't even know when it started.

Something consider: elevated diastolic blood pressure with a systololic blood pressure of <140 is apparently not correlated to more negative outcomes. Apparently home blood pressure monitors are prone to overreport the diastolic reading by about 7mm in those instances. Source: recently read a paper about this, which looked at multiple large scale studies. Don't have the link on mobile, sorry.

Bottom line: well done on the lifestyle changes, and don't worry if only the bottom number is high.

Interesting, I have read quite conflicting information on that though, link would be appreciated. The problem is not just with home monitors though and I read while it’s more disregarded in older people it could point to underlying issues in younger people which is what freaks me out since nobody found anything yet.

In the same boat as you but don’t exercise as much and drink more, similar age and BMI. I would go vegetarian and train for a marathon. :). If that doesn’t help, then only drugs will in my non medical opinion.

Could be the Chinese food? Most takeout or food that you don't cook yourself is high in sodium, which raises your blood pressure. If you cook for yourself with non-processed ingredients and without over-seasoning - and stay well-hydrated - then maybe you'd be fine. As someone that moved to the USA and started eating out a lot, I quickly realised my sodium intake shot up drastically and that I should cook for myself more to be healthy

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