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As people grow older and adulthood stretches into middle age, blood pressure becomes an increasingly important indicator of cardiovascular health. Regular checkups are important, of course, but people can only make it to the doctor’s office every so often. It makes sense, then, that so many Americans have come to rely on a home blood pressure monitor.

These monitors feature handy readouts that fill us in on systolic and diastolic pressure information. Systolic measures the pressure as the heart contracts, and diastolic the pressure when the heart muscle is relaxed. Generally speaking, when systolic pressure dips below 90 and diastolic below 60, a person has hypotension or low blood pressure. Hypertension is characterized by a systolic reading of 120 or greater combined with a diastolic reading of at least 80.