How high might your blood pressure be if your arm isn’t properly positioned? Elizabeth Tracey reports

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High blood pressure is associated with cardiovascular events like heart attacks and strokes, so keeping it under control is important. Yet many times blood pressures are measured without consideration for arm position, resulting in higher readings than would be seen otherwise. That’s according to a Johns Hopkins study led by Tammy Brady, a cardiovascular health promotion expert.

Brady: What we found is if your arm is in your lap or hanging at the side your blood pressure is overestimated by 4mm of mercury systolic, so significant overestimation if you're not adhering to the recommended guideline of arm position and support. It's not hard, it's just you need to be intentional about it and to maybe rearrange the room a little bit. But if you do that at the outset of a clinic setting or at a large screening setting you just need to set it up and have it ready to go.     :29

Brady says advocate for yourself if your arm isn’t supported and positioned at about heart height. At Johns Hopkins, I’m Elizabeth Tracey.