Also called white coat syndrome, white coat hypertension is when a patient's blood pressure measurements are consistently higher in the doctor's office than at home. MJ experienced this yesterday during a visit to the doctor's office, where her readings were higher than the expected 120/80 (systolic/ diastolic numbers). It was a pretty stressful visit to decide our next step in fertility, so I get it....even the nurse told MJ not to be nurse, but totally understandable that patients would get nervous about upcoming procedure, or impending probe into one's body. I'm not sure how blood pressure works, but I'm pretty sure my blood pressure was high for an extended period of time when driving in traffic to get to work in L.A. (mostly pre-pandemic)... mine was probably blocked-traffic hypertension or bumper-to-bumper hypertension. Oddly, when I go to give blood, I'm pretty stressed too about it because I don't like the needle prick of the finger (step right after blood pressure is to check hemoglobin) and I don't like impending needle or multiple needles going into my arm, but my readings are fairly normal, maybe I'm just dull to it now. Luckily for me, lack of hypertension probably means I don't eat too much salt or have an unhealthy lifestyle, as those would be causes for hypertension.
Salt.....is not talked about enough in the American health system. Sugar is a huge problem because there's just so much of it in soft drinks, beverages, orange juice, even some type of milk and coffees (a good reason NOT to add sugar to your coffee- MJ is very much a black coffee person but we do sometimes get cappucinos and lattes), but I feel like people are aware of sugar being a culprit in weight gain, unhealthy habits, they just choose to indulge in it (another reason NOT to choose to get a dessert when the waiter offers it at a fancy restaurant). I learned about another beverage the other day I didn't even know about called "Yoo-hoo," which is literally just described as a "chocolate drink," it's just chocolate and sugar and water I guess. At least they're honest. Salt feels more like a silent killer as everything in food has a lot of salt, and restaurants just dump as much salt as they can into food as long as it's tasty. MJ and I often say that certain desserts "cannot be bad" if they're like terramisu or some sort of cream, puff, have vanilla, chocolate, etc. Well a lot of foods get a cheat code if they just put plenty of salt in it, it appeals to people's tastes, and they just keep eating it. I haven't gotten McDonald's fries for a long time, but I now recall seeing their kitchens full of the deep fry machine as well as dumping a load of salt into the fries and just mixing it around, and now understanding why people said to avoid fast food. All fast food restaurants rely on these salty conctions. Talk about white-coat hypertension, this is white-castle hypertension, or yellow-arches hypertension! I wonder how much extra boost on the systolic rating you get just from consuming a meal. "Fancy" restaurants I suspect use the SALT cheat code too, but just not as prominently and blatantly, leaving a little nuance for picky eaters who you know, care about nutrition. At this point, though, I feel only safe eating a raw piece of carrot or kale, at least I know people didn't douse that with salt yet. There's definitely something to be said about having that "fresh" feeling in your mouth after eating as opposed to the sour aftertaste of sugar and astringent aftertaste of salt.
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