This week’s Hometown Hero, presented by Hendrick Southpoint Acura, is Dr. Holly Biola from the Durham-Orange County Medical Society. She spoke with Aaron Keck recently about the importance of maintaining a healthy blood pressure.
“In general, I like to tell patients that the lower number the diastolic blood pressure, it’s kind of like sticking a tire gauge in your body, just trying to get a sense of how much pressure is present in you all the time just at rest.
“Then the upper number, what we call the systolic number is how much pressure there is when your heart pumps, when it squeezes or beats.”
Dr. Biola says she likes to use the analogy of watering a garden when talking about blood pressure.
“Your blood pressure is kinda like the water pressure when you’re watering the garden of your body. You know that if you’re watering your garden and you put your finger over the nozzle and you squeeze really hard in you spray the dickens out of that flower, just the pressure’s going to kill it even though the water is what it needs. The same is true of the insides of your blood vessels and your blood.”
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