What is normal human blood pressure?

What is normal human blood pressure?

This article will answer the question what is normal human blood pressure. It’s complicated. Here goes.

The answer

There is no such thing as ‘normal blood pressure’. But for most adults, most of the time, there is a normal range between 90/60 and 130/80 mmHg.

“130/80 is a good average target for most patients, and 120/70 if you have diabetes.”

For most people, high blood pressure (BP) is ‘silent’, i.e. you cannot ‘feel’ whether it is high or low.

Is BP constant through the day?

No. Your blood pressure varies minute and minute, and hour by hour. For example, blood pressure follows a circadian rhythm;.

It increases on waking in the morning and decreases during sleeping at night (called ‘nocturnal dipping’). This is why it is important not to make a decision on a single reading of BP. Several measurements are required.

Circadian rhythm of blood pressure

How is blood pressure affected by age, gender and ethnicity?

As you can see from these graphs for the USA, age, gender and ethnicity all affect blood pressure, in the following ways:

1. Age. Blood pressure goes up as you get older – e.g.
   – 90/60 can be normal if you are 20 years old woman
   – 150/80 can be normal if you are 80 years old man
   – Pulse pressure (the gap between systolic and diastolic blood pressure) gets wider as you age. It can be 40 mmHg at 20 years, and 70 mmHg at 80 years
2. Gender. Men have higher blood pressure than women
3. Ethnicity. Black people have higher blood pressure than white people.

Implication

It is important to have different blood pressure targets for people of different ages, gender and ethnicities.

Summary

We have answered the question what is a normal human blood pressure. There is no such thing as normal blood pressure. It is affected by many things, including time of day, age, gender and ethnicity.

Other resource

A normal human being