Thousands of doctors and researchers have spent considerable time, money and effort trying to describe precisely what the true definition of high blood pressure is.

There have been a large number of human population studies carried out on this subject which have given the doctors and researchers a wide range of blood pressure values. Unfortunately however the results are normally skewed and vary from country to country and even from one district to the next within a particular country. Therefore, it has been concluded that the definition of high blood pressure can only be arrived at through constant observation and experiment.

Normal blood pressure is seen today much like normal body weight in that the defining level is that which is seen as providing the greatest chance of life expectancy. This is the pressure at which the heart along with other important elements of the body like the circulatory system can continue under optimum conditions without running the risk of heart disease and other related conditions.

There are other considerations to be taken into account when defining hypertension and some of these have to be excluded. For example, If a healthy person becomes then their systolic (or pumping) blood pressure will rise by perhaps a significant amount as their blood flow increases in response to emotional excitement or any type of energetic activity. However it will not remain high for very long and as soon as the level of excitement has gone down your blood pressure also falls back to normal.

In addition to your systolic blood pressure you also have a diastolic (resting) blood pressure which is the more important of the two and is an excellent guide in determining whether a high reading is a false positive. Diastolic pressure is important because it reveals the state of a person's arteries and if a person has a high reading this may mean that the arteries are narrowed and not permitting the free flow of blood as they should be.

It is very important to understand that high blood pressure is not in itself a disease but is a key criterion by which doctors can diagnose other conditions.

Finally, it is also necessary to know that hypertension cannot be cured but that it can be very effectively controlled.