Blood-pressure meters
Keeping an eye on your blood pressure could help you stay healthy – and your PC, phone or tablet makes it easy to record and compare your readings
We review three of the best monitors for simple health checks at home
Blood-pressure monitoring is standard practice in modern preventative medicine, and you’ll find self-testing machines in many hospitals and GP surgeries. Your doctor may also recommend you use a home monitor. A recent Oxford University study found that when people measured their own blood pressure they tended to get lower readings, suggesting that having your blood pressure checked by others raises your blood pressure!
You can see immediately if a blood pressure reading is dangerously high (or, less commonly, low), and most meters will draw your attention to this. But it’s not just about warning signs. An equally important benefit of testing your blood pressure regularly is to see its pattern over time. This is where the idea of connecting the meter to a computer comes in. Software will record each reading and show you a rolling chart.
All of these machines are based on a 19th-century invention, the sphygmomanometer. You wrap an inflatable cuff around your arm, and the machinery pumps it up to temporarily halt the blood flow – this is the part that feels slightly uncomfortable. The pressure is then released until the blood begins to flow again – detected originally by listening with a stethoscope, and now by detecting oscillations – and this gives your systolic pressure (the first number in a reading). The cuff continues to release until the oscillations disappear, and that’s your diastolic pressure (the second number). The numbers appear immediately on an LCD screen (120 over 80, for example).
Oscillometric meters are now widely used by medics and are the type of meters reviewed on the opposite page. But the method isn’t as accurate as traditional manual testing, and can be thrown off by certain heart conditions, such as irregular heartbeart (known as arrythmia), so it’s worth asking your doctor if a digital meter will suit you. You may be advised to take several readings a few minutes apart and work out the average. For most people, though, they should be adequately accurate.
Most meters consist of the cuff and a separate digital control unit, with a tube between the two. Some pricier models build the electronics into the cuff. The easiest connection is wireless, via Bluetooth, to an app running on a smartphone or tablet, but some units connect to a PC with a USB cable instead.
Alternative meters
If you don’t feel the need for a computer connection, Lloyds Pharmacy Blood Pressure Monitor (£20 from Lloyds Pharmacy www.snipca.com/25879, pictured top) is quite simple to use. It can store your last 60 readings. Alternatively, Boots’ Advanced Monitor with Atrial Fibrillation Alert (£100 from Boots www.snipca.com/25880, pictured) claims to specifically detect atrial fibulation (afib), a form of arrythmia that can lead to a stroke. Its design is clunky, but we found it simple enough to use.
Other blood-pressure monitors are available that work on your wrist instead of your upper arm and are easier to get on and off. Older veins can be more problematic in the wrist, though. We tried the Omron MIT Precision 5 (£60 from Amazon www.snipca.com/25886), which has a sensor that lets you know if you’re holding your wrist at the right height to make it work correctly. It also has an arrythmia warning, but no computer connection.
Having your blood pressure checked by others can actually raise it