Blood pressure limits during exercise
 

Can anyone tell me what is the upper limit of 'acceptable' blood pressure during exercise?

Blood Pressure
 

Don't quote me but I believe that I read somewhere that it is 220 minus your age - so, at 30 = 190. Look up stress ECG on the internet - you should find it there

Physiological responses to exercise (presume you are asking about whilst doing an exercise ECG ? ) are extremely variable, and it would be very difficult to set or define an upper limit of normal BP (systolic or diastolic) during such activity.

What is probably of much more value to us is to see how quickly the blood pressure (AND the heart rate, of course) settle back to their previous resting levels once the strenuous exercise ceases !

Immelman you are about right. Here is the info I was looking for:

Opinions vary as to the definition of a hypertensive response to exercise, but most authorities accept as a maximal limit a systolic pressure of 230 mm Hg. The diastolic blood pressure during exercise usually varies 10 mm Hg in either direction.

A maximal exercise stress test is one that achieves the target heart rate, exercise level or time limit established for the patient. In most cases, the goal is the target heart rate, as calculated with the following formula: (220 - patient's age) × 0.85 beats per minute.

MARK D. DARROW, M.D

Thanks
RV6

That is interesting as BP is usually regarded as resting with a heart rate of 60-70. With a petrified white coat patient bombing along at 100 bpm or even higher what would his BP expect to be and could you work back from those readings to what it would be if he/she were resting at 60 BPM with some calculation or other?

Ie a muscular athlete lifting weights or another athlete running a sprint with high heart rates what sort of readings would they get while exercising at such levels?

Addendum

To make this clearer with BP there are two readings, maybe there should be three including heartbeat. Are readings taken at the Doctors surgery with anything above the normal resting beat range irrelevant? So ie what would the normal BP range be in a guy exercising at 150 BPM?

Pace

What's the Medics View ?
 

This is an excellent question and perhaps a solution to the "White Coat Syndrome " interesting to get a medics view !


Cliste

RV6, Mark

Interesting that you add the x .85 at the end of the usual formula. When I was undergoing stress ECGs at the CAA facility at Gatwick at around the age of 55 they were quite happy to see my BPM at 180 during the test. That would be way above that calculation.

Their maximum may have been calculated using other figures, including BMI, resting BP and BP during the test. Anyway I survived, whatever it was went away and I now no longer need to visit their facility. :)

The highest readings I ever had were in my 20s I am now in my 50s and have passed 20 + medicals since then although I must admit to being petrified of having it checked at medicals. Viscious circle petrified of ever getting high readings again and days of agony running up to an aviation medical :)

Frankly I neither trust anything which is not understood by science and BP is not yet! Millions are medicated with drugs that can do a lot of damage.

Conflicting studies ? Only last week headlines " Salt not the big bad demon previously thought of in BP". No evidenece that drugging people prolongs life in medium and high BP only in very high BP.
What and who are we to believe?

Black skinned people have the highest level of high BP followed by white with the lowest going to Asians?

Seems to me that follows muscle mass and size ? ie Black people have the largest muscle mass the strongest hearts and the largest blood vessel systems Asians are the smallest people with the smallest least powerful hearts and smallest blood vessels?

Does that mean what is high in an Asian would be normal for a Black Person but the same scale is used for all?

Going to the title of this thread where BP readings of 180 or higher are completely normal while exercising it does begger the question that people who artificially create exercise conditions by being apprehensive or creating the fight or flight sitution is the reason for the white coat syndrome? making readings taken with a heart rate of more than resting ie 55-65 useless.

On an interesting note i read about an implant which controls BP naturally like a pacemaker through the bodies own control system.

Damaging drug free in the future. Maybe the way ahead for those with serious HBP ? But until science understands the cause It is worrying that drugs used to control HBP maybe damaging the organs which cause it.

Pace

Really strange about this B/P predictions.
I was borderline B/P with a reading of 140 over 95.
I reduced my smoking, drink much less now and it has come down quite a bit.
One of the things my FAA doctor told me that if I did not reduce this one day during exercising or stress that it would push me over the limit, maybe with a stroke etc.
He wanted to place me on medication which I refused.
My pressure is down to normal now after being high for years.
I reduced my smoking and alcohol, I also add garlic to my food.
be careful what these doctors tell you, if I had listened to mine I would have been on medication for the rest of my life.
You know your own body, if some of these doctors wont listen, find another one, they are a dime a dozen.
I have found some doctors that think that its there job to keep you from flying, where others if you are borderline really help you to get back to a healthy status.
Bottom line its your best interest to remain healthy, s good AME will do this, a bad one, just walk out and go elsewhere.
Find one that really wants to help improve your health, not end your flying career.

Blood pressure should and does go up and down with exercise, stress, time of day etc etc. We like to see that the resting blood pressure (ie lowest) is below a certain limit. If not you have hypertension.

When performing certain tests such as an exercise ECG it is important to get the pressure and rate up by a certain amount and then ensure there are no nasty changes on the ECG

However, this is totally different from how high you CAN get your blood pressure. If you are in a potentially lethal situation, your blood pressure will be far higher than the figures above. NASA recorded very high figures telemetrically on Apollo launches, but there is no evidence these are or were dangerous.

Whilst we work very hard with operations to control blood pressure this in the main is because patients with blood pressure/heart disease and in particular coronary artery disease can come to harm from high pressures. For pilots with normal coronary vessels there is no 'maximum', no need to worry or modify the pressure, nor any adverse conclusion to draw.

Hope this helps.