Why You Shouldn't Trust Your Doctor's Blood Pressure Readings

 

When Monica, a 50 years-old mother of two, visited her doctor for a routine check-up she was told her blood pressure was 142/83 mmHg. That made her hypertensive, at least in the eyes of the health care system.

Her doctor prescribed a blood pressure drug and asked her to see him again in 2 month’s time.

Upon her follow-up visit Monica’s blood pressure had come down to 132/82 mmHg. The doctor recommended to continue taking the drug as it obviously kept her blood pressure in a healthier range.

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Individualized Medicine, Ignorant Medics And An Invitation To Lose Weight.

In my previous post I promised to talk about your individualized way to achieving optimal health. If that made you think about personalized medicine, you were right. Almost. Because personalized medicine is still light-years away from us. That's the bad news. The good news, personalized prevention is an emerging reality. At least in my lab. Which is why I would like to invite you to become a part of it. No strings attached. But before we get to this let's first get on the same page about the personalization of medicine.

Two questions we need to ask ourselves: What is personalized medicine and why would we want it?

Professor Jeremy K Nicholson of the Imperial College, London, defined personalized medicine as "effective therapies that are tailored to the exact biology or biological state of an individual" [1]. Such tailoring of a treatment, say for your high blood pressure, would require your doctor to evaluate your biochemical and metabolic profile in order to prescribe you the most effective drug or treatment at the most effective dose, with the least possibility of side effects.

Now, why would we want this?

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