Need for At-Home Blood Pressure Monitoring Underscored by High-Profile Card...( BANNOCKBURN Ill. Ju...),Health

BANNOCKBURN, Ill., July 20 /PRNewswire/ -- Heart disease is the leading cause of death in men in the United States(1). Yet it's often not until the untimely passing of a celebrity from a cardiac event - such as Billy Mays or Tim Russert - that the issue is brought to the forefront of Americans' health and wellness routine. And even then, when there's a heightened focus on heart health, a recent survey(2) uncovered that only 14 percent of people would be inclined to start regularly monitoring their blood pressure at home - a preventive measure highly recommended by the American Heart Association (AHA)(3) since it can help signal impending cardiac distress caused by high blood pressure.

High blood pressure increases the workload of the heart and arteries in order to maintain the body's necessary blood flow. It causes your heart to pump harder and requires the arteries to carry blood that's under greater pressure. If left untreated, sustained high blood pressure can lead to serious health problems, such as stroke, congestive heart failure and heart attack. Further, if no measures are in place to monitor heart health, a cardiac event can seem to come on suddenly -- according to the AHA, about 310,000 people a year die suddenly of coronary heart disease (CHD) without ever being hospitalized or even admitted to an emergency room.

At-Home Wake-Up Call

"High blood pressure is called 'the silent killer' since it has little or no symptoms. Many people don't realize that it can be difficult to detect by only monitoring it in a doctor's office, which is why home blood pressure monitoring is so important," says Dr. Annabelle Volgman, cardiologist, Rush University Medical Center. "It's an absolutely critical step for anyone with known or suspected hypertension and may provide the only early warning to a cardiac event."

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