Your Blood Pressure Reading Could Be Wrong Because of This One Simple Mistake

A blood pressure reading can change before anyone changes the medicine, the diet, or the diagnosis. One small positioning error during the test may be enough to push the number higher than it really is.

That mistake is simple: the arm is not properly supported at heart level. Researchers from Johns Hopkins Medicine found that common arm positions used during checks can noticeably inflate blood pressure readings.

In the study, resting the arm in the lap or letting it hang unsupported at the side produced higher numbers than the guideline-recommended position. That difference could be enough to move some people into a higher blood pressure category.