Different BP reading between arms linked to high death risk

London, Dec 27 : Difference in blood pressure readings between arms is linked to greater risk of heart attack, stroke and death, a significant, large international study has revealed.
Led by the University of Exeter, the global collaboration conducted a meta-analysis of all the available research, then merged data from 24 global studies to create a database of nearly 54,000 people.
The data spanned adults from Europe, the US, Africa and Asia for whom blood pressure readings for both arms were available.
Funded by the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) and published in the journal Hypertension, the study is the first to find that the greater the inter-arm blood pressure difference, the greater the patient’s additional health risk.
“Checking one arm then the other with a routinely used blood pressure monitor is cheap and can be carried out in any healthcare setting, without the need for additional or expensive equipment,” said lead author Dr Chris Clark of the University of Exeter Medical School.
While international guidelines currently recommend that this is done, it only happens around half of the time at best, usually due to time constraints.