If you’ve been told you have high blood pressure for the first time, that needs to be confirmed, Elizabeth Tracey reports

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Many people have elevated blood pressure when they visit their doctor’s office, so if you’ve been told your blood pressure is high that needs to be confirmed before you are put on any medicines to lower it. That’s according to new guidelines from the US Preventive Services Task Force. Greg Prokopowicz, a blood pressure expert at Johns Hopkins, explains.

Prokopowicz: A single office blood pressure measurement doesn’t tell the whole story. So you want to confirm that with some sort of out of office blood pressure monitoring. And in previous guidelines they’ve often emphasized ambulatory blood pressure monitoring, which is where you wear a monitor and walk around with it for 24 hours and it takes a blood pressure reading every twenty to thirty minutes. That set of measurements is the best way to get a sense of where you stand with respect to blood pressure it terms of your risk for future problems related to your blood pressure meaning heart attack, stroke, and kidney disease. :32

At Johns Hopkins, I’m Elizabeth Tracey.