Good News about High Blood Pressure: Everything You Need to Know to Take Control of Hypertension...and Your Life

By Thomas Pickering

Book Overview

Here is the most comprehensive, up-to-date, and helpful book of its kind ever published for the fifty million Americans who suffer from high blood pressure, or hypertension. An internationally acclaimed authority, Dr. Thomas Pickering is Professor of Medicine at the Hypertension Center at the New York Hospital-Cornell Medical Center in New York. He is a leading researcher and educator, and the author of over 350 scientific articles and three clinical textbooks. Reflecting all the latest cutting-edge research, Good News about High Blood Pressure explains new technological breakthroughs such as ambulatory monitoring, the best mainstream treatments for high blood pressure and high cholesterol, and the pros and cons of alternative treatments such as vitamins, herbs, and meditation.
Dr. Pickering reminds us that people suffering from hypertension do not necessarily exhibit any visible signs of stress or strain. In fact, in the vast majority of cases, hypertension produces no symptoms whatsoever, which is what makes it so deadly. This "invisible disease," which plagues its victims for life, can lead to heart disease and strokes -- the nation's leading causes of death and disability. The bad news is that just 65% of hypertension sufferers are aware of their condition, and only 49% are undergoing treatment. But the good news is that there are many new treatment options available that enable these people to keep their illness in check and live long and fruitful lives.
With over twenty-five years' experience in answering patients' questions about their condition, Dr. Pickering shows hypertension patients how to take charge of their situation by learning to monitor their own blood pressure and by making appropriate changes in their lifestyle. In order to control high blood pressure, he emphasizes, one must deal with the other risk factors for heart disease, such as smoking, excess weight, and high cholesterol. Accessible and informative, the book discusses recently released studies about the possible impact on high blood pressure of red wine, homocysteine, the obesity hormone leptin, and folic acid.
With its reassuring tone, comprehensive scope, and new research, Good News about High Blood Pressure encourages readers to take charge of their condition, rendering all other patient guides obsolete. It is about as close as a book can come to being an expert medical specialist on call to answer your questions twenty-four hours a day.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0684832119
• ISBN13: 9780684832111
• Release Date: March 1997
• Publisher: Simon & Schuster
• Length: 336 Pages
• Weight: 0.96 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 5.6" x 8.5"

Customer Reviews

A good overview

This book is clear and easy to read. It presents an authoritavie overview of high blood pressure and what to do about it. The author seems to know what he is talking about and gives sound advice. Recommended.

The best book on high blood pressure

After reading many of the popular books on high blood pressure, I must rank this one the best. I was particularly happy with the chapter on "white coat hypertension" and blood pressuure measurement and the many related studies that he comments on. Many books tend to have just a paragraph on this subject and gloss over such an important issue. The chapter on the "work-up" was also very useful to me. Now I will feel much more comfortable about asking my own doctor about a renin-sodium profile and an echo-cardiogram to be included for me. I would have liked to see a discussion of the "uric-acid" debate. Perhaps the publication of the book predated this debate. I was also happy that he chose to have a separate chapter about high blood pressure in seniors. With a hyperensive 70 year-old mum to worry about, this chapter was a wonderful source of information. Like another reviewer, I felt the section on "Alternative Medicine" was relatively small and brusque. But in earlier sections Dr Pickering did consider the mineral supplement issues in depth - what he doesn't consider is whether one should be taking natural herb supplements. His discussion of meditation could be improved significantly. But a weak discussion of alternative medicine should not detract from an otherwise very useful and authoritative book. I hope Dr Pickering will give us an updated version of this book - and allow Dr Andrew Weil to write the section on alternative treatments

Clear, scientific, rational guide for the hypertensive

The first reviewer's comment that "The only thing that kept me from giving him a five-star rating is his negative reaction to alternative treatments" convinced me to buy this book. I was looking for a book that explains what medical science actually knows about high blood pressure, and instead ran into a slew of "Smile your way out of hypertension!" pseudo-scientific nonsensicals. Fie on so-called "alternative" treatments: I wanted to read solid knowledge. I was relieved and pleased to find this book. Pickering presents what is known, describes tested treatments, is realistic about weight, exercise, and gender/race/age without being discouraging or fatalistic, and does it in a readable way. I highly recommend this book.

This book is definitely worth reading

Dr. Pickering does a good job of explaining how your body works and its relationship to high blood pressure. He does a great job of interpreting conflicting studies. The only thing that kept me from giving him a five star rating is his negative reaction to alternative treatments.