To protect yourself from stroke, the best place to start is lowering your blood pressure.

High blood pressure – or hypertension – can injure your arteries, increasing the likelihood that plaque deposits will develop in them. As your damaged arteries grow narrow and hard, your blood pressure goes up more.

Ideally, your blood pressure should be below 120/80 mm Hg. If it’s between 120/80 and 139/89, it’s considered prehypertension. This means you don’t have high blood pressure yet, but you’re likely to develop it. If your blood pressure is 140/90 or higher, you have hypertension.

High blood pressure doesn’t typically cause any signs or symptoms – so roughly one third of the people with the problem don’t even know they have it. If you haven’t had yours checked recently, ask your doctor to check yours at your next visit.

Source: National Institutes of Health

Learn more about peripheral arterial disease screening

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