Unit Two Blood Pressure Lab!

When taking your blood pressure it is measureing the force of blood against wall of vessels.

-Systolic pressure- is the highest point, as blood is being forced out of the heart by contraction of heart muscle.

-Diastolic pressure- is the lowest point, between heart beats, when heart is inactive

Normal Values of adult blood pressure:

Systolic Diastolic

95-135 50-90

Hypertension- <135>

Hypotension- >95 >50

State a problem about the relationship of age and gender to blood pressure.

Learning about blood pressure the biggest problem I see between age and gender is that the older you get your blood pressure increases. I think gender may be irrelevant because I believe it is more about the kind of lifestyle you live and how you take care of your body and what kind of diet you have.

Use your knowledge about the heart and the circulatory system to make a hypothesis about how the average blood pressure for a group of people would be affected by manipulating the age and gender of the group members.

My hypothesis would be that blood pressure would increase as age increases. I'm not sure about how gender will affect blood pressure. Also with age increasing the lack of exercise and poor eating habits will effect blood pressure.

How will you use the investigation screen to test your hypothesis? What steps will you follow? What data will you record?

I will use this screen to test multiple age groups within the male and female gender. I will record a average blood pressure for each gender and age group. While doing so I will look at patient records and evaluate their history. I will then graph the average blood pressures for each group and use this graph to organize my data and show me where the increases took place and try to evaluate why the increase or decrease in age and gender group.

Analyze the result of your experiment. Explain any patterns you observed.

After the experiment I wasn't surprised about my results. My data showed me that with age blood pressure does increase. It also showed me that males had more of a chance of having high blood pressure I'm not sure why this is so I am going to have to investigate a little further.

Did the result of your experiment support your hypothesis? Why or why not? Based on your experiment what conclusion can you draw about the relationship of age and gender to group blood pressure averages?

Yes my results supported my hypothesis because with age blood pressure increases. I also noticed that there was more of an increase in the male gender I am still unsure of why this is and will further investigate this matter.

During the course of your experiment, did you obtain any blood pressure reading that were outside of the normal range for the group being tested? What did you notice on the medical charts for these individuals that might explain their high reading?

Majority of the individuals outside the normal range were overweight or obese. I also noticed that they most of them were in the age ranges of 35-44 and 45-54. The ones that did not fit into that group had poor eating habits, high salt intake, lack of exercise, family history of hypertension, and consumed alcohol. This made sense to me when you aren't taking care of your body and poisoning it with the wrong foods it will lead to high blood pressure and other health problems.

List risk factors associated with the hypertension. Based on your observation, which risk factor do you think is most closely associated with hypertension?

Some risk factors associated with hypertension are poor diet, genetics, alcohol, lack of exercise, smoking, and the risk factor I think that is most closely related to hypertension is obesity. All these factors contribute to hypertension as well to obesity its about your physical health as an individual.

What effect might obesity have on blood pressure? Does obesity alone cause a person to be at risk for high blood pressure? What other factors, in combination with obesity, might increase a person's risk for high blood pressure?

Obesity effects blood pressure because the person who is obese does not have a healthy lifestyle. I do think obesity alone can cause hypertension because the same things that lead to obesity lead to hypertension. Lack of exercise, poor diet, consumption of alcohol, and an overall unhealthy lifestyle.