I think you have a very good point when you say "normal is how your body works rather than an average obtained from 99 other people" Every health marker is given a standard range, or a normal range, but each of us is unique. None of us is the same. What is normal for one is not normal for another. I have no idea how they calculate what is optimal for blood pressure, but somehow they have come up with a figure and applied it to everyone - male, female, young, old, in between. Men have different bodies to women, bigger with more circulating blood. How come their BP should be the same as a woman? Same when it comes to age.
Hi Bluetit, I very much agree. Don't get me wrong, I know there must be an absolute upper limit which if passed would be dangerous for an individual, but just being out of the so called 'normal range' does not really concern me and I am convinced my body compensates in other ways to counterbalance a higher blood pressure. Same with my cholesterol, it is 7.2 and I was referred to a Lipid consultant. Cut a long story short but my HDL is 2.45, trigs 0.5 and LDL 4.2. They did a DNA test, results just back and it showed I did NOT have FH, but the 12 other tests they do (which indicate whether the high LDL is genetic or not) came back as highly likely my high LDL was 'polygenic', ie GENES. Meaning eating fewer eggs (which my Dr suggested) has no effect whatsoever on my personal cholesterol levels. I think my HDL & trigs are dealing quite nicely with the LDL genes.