Hypertension patients: Use home monitors

NEW YORK, May 23 (UPI) -- People with hypertension should routinely monitor their blood pressure at home to help manage the disease, three U.S. health non-profits recommend.

A joint scientific statement from the American Heart Association, American Society of Hypertension and the Preventive Cardiovascular Nurses' Association says there is strong evidence that the traditional way of measuring blood pressure in adults can be misleading.

Studies indicate that between 10 percent and 20 percent of people diagnosed with high blood pressure in the doctor's office actually have the "white coat effect" -- their blood pressure is normal under other conditions, but rises in a medical setting.

"It is also believed that some people with normal blood pressures in their doctors' offices have pressures that spike to potentially dangerous levels in other situations," Dr. Thomas G. Pickering of Columbia Presbyterian Medical Center in New York said in a statement.

Blood pressure measurement and tracking could be improved with home monitoring by the patients themselves, much as people with diabetes monitor their blood sugar levels with home glucose monitors, Pickering said.

The statement is published in Hypertension: Journal of the American Heart Association, the Journal of the American Society of Hypertension, the Journal of Clinical Hypertension and the Journal of Cardiovascular Nursing.