Why is diastolic pressure low

This depends on a person's age and underlying medical problems, but this range is a good rule of thumb. There is some data that the ideal salt intake for healthy people is around 3.

Suzanne Oparil and Dr. David Calhoun, has detailed much of the basic science showing the effect of salt at a molecular level in the blood vessels.

On the inside, your blood vessels are lined with a thin monolayer of endothelial cells. In an experimental setting, adding salt to these cells causes changes almost immediately. They become less reactive — that means they stiffen up — and lose their elasticity, which is what you actually see clinically. Additionally, the stiffening of the vessels happens very soon after you take on a salt load during eating, which is very interesting.

Lifestyle changes like diet and exercise can have immediate effects. Your inside changes much quicker than the mirror shows you. The body is very dynamic. Within a few weeks, you can see the benefits of lifestyle change. In fact, with dietary changes in salt intake, you can see a difference in a day or two.

The first criticism was that we were looking strictly, as the name suggests, at isolated diastolic hypotension. When we looked at the patients in our study, their systolic blood pressures were all relatively normal, and we adjusted for patients with a history of hypertension. So we actually went back and redid the analysis, completely excluding people with hypertension.

And the results still remained true. In fact, the association was even stronger. The other criticism involved something called pulse pressure. And multiple studies have shown that a widened pulse pressure is also a risk factor for cardiovascular disease. And even when we adjusted for pulse pressure, the conclusion about the low diastolic pressure still rang true.

We actually looked at three different groups of pulse pressure — normal, wide and really wide. And it was true throughout. There are two different types of heart failure: one where the pumping function of the heart is abnormal — that is known as systolic heart failure — and one where the relaxation function is abnormal — that is known as diastolic heart failure.

It was widely overlooked, to be honest, until about years ago, when physicians realized that these poor patients were having terrible heart-failure symptoms but none of the classic objective measures of heart failure. That stiffness leads fluid to back up into the lungs and extremities and causes a lot of the symptoms that you have with systolic heart failure, but the pumping function of the heart is normal. From the blood samples, the ARIC scientists performed high-sensitivity cardiac troponin testing, a way of measuring a protein involved in muscle contraction levels, which rise when there is heart damage from a heart attack or blocked artery.

A troponin value greater than or equal to 14 nanograms per liter of blood indicates heart damage. After controlling for age, race, sex, diabetes , drinking, smoking and other factors, the researchers found that some 1, people with diastolic blood pressure below 60 millimeters of mercury were statistically twice as likely to have troponin-indicated heart damage, compared to participants with higher diastolic blood pressures ranging from 80 to 89 millimeters of mercury.

Some 3, people with a diastolic blood pressure between 60 and 69 millimeters of mercury were 52 percent more likely to have heart damage as measured by the high-sensitivity troponin test, with some people in this range showing elevated troponin levels. People with a diastolic blood pressure range from 70 to 99 millimeters of mercury showed no greater risk of troponin-associated heart damage.

The Johns Hopkins team also looked for evidence of a link among low diastolic blood pressure and coronary heart disease — characterized by a buildup of fatty plaque that blocks blood flow — stroke and overall mortality risk.

Of those with the lowest diastolic blood pressure under 60 millimeters of mercury , had coronary heart disease events, like heart attacks; 56 had strokes; and people died. On average, those with the lowest diastolic blood pressure below 60 millimeters of mercury were 49 percent more likely to have heart disease and 32 percent more likely to die of any cause. According to the U. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, about 70 million American adults, or one in three, have high blood pressure.

High blood pressure is a major risk factor for heart attacks, stroke, heart failure and kidney disease , and controlling blood pressure with diet, exercise and medicines have vastly improved cardiovascular health, McEvoy says. McEvoy says further research into the links between very low diastolic pressure and heart damage risk must be done, but he believes the evidence is already suggestive enough to warrant caution in further lowering diastolic pressure in some individuals.

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Medically reviewed by Kathy W. Warwick, R.