Here in Bulgaria we are doing fine on lentil soups and leak with onions and garlic. Unfortunately they were out of sprouts.
If I ever needed proof that I am an old fa*t I definitely got it now. But the food is delicious nevertheless.
Also had one of the best Cesar salads in a long time here.
An article on BMI from Nature. Nothing really new after reading this thread, but still interesting in my amateur opinion. It has a few good examples, and mentions possible (but more complicated) alternatives. The formula originates from a statistician trying to find the 1840s average man, so is skewed to 19th century white Belgian males 
I recently had oyster mushrooms fried sautéed in shallots with steamed kale on sourdough toast. Best meal for quite a long time.
Who needs processed food when nature produces such beautiful food and in amazing colours?
Graham wrote:
Whilst it’s sometimes a little on the high side, is there something to be said for just leaving well alone?
Absolutely there is, especially at his age. Arterial hypertension is mainly a problem over long timespans and especially when developed early in life and not properly controlled. Then it can significantly shorten your lifespan.
But if you already made it to 80, your remaining lifespan statistically is in the range of say 5 to 10 years, if you made it to 90 it is more like 2 to 5 years. At that age I would make quality of life the most important criterion for any medication. And BP medication can have a lot of side effects, including feeling tired/sleepy or – especially important for males – impotence. Obsessing about the BP can very well lead to elevated BP by itself. Several guidelines discuss higher thresholds for treating hypertension at advanced age, and personally I wouldn’t treat any systolic pressure below 150 mmHg or diastolic below 90 mmHg at that age.
My father, recently 80, has become obsessed with his blood pressure and is constantly measuring it and seeing his doctor to discuss a change of meds.
Whilst it’s sometimes a little on the high side, is there something to be said for just leaving well alone?
This week I had a 20 year old patient with a BP reading 220/140 mmHg. The thing about arterial hypertension is that you usually don’t feel any symptoms from it, and if you do it is usually an emergency (by definition the term “hypertensive emergency” means having an abnormally high BP reading with organ damage from hypertension which results in symptoms such as headache, dizziness, visual impairment etc.).
The fellow I mentioned had no symptoms and we only knew about his elevates BP because we measure it regularly in all of our postoperative patients. Also these are not values you would ever achieve through “white coat hypertension”, which is more in the area of perhaps 30 mmHg elevated, so say 140 to 160 mmHg systolic.
The repeated advice in this topic to measure BP at home and when relaxed is certainly valid, though there are many devices on the market which give widely incorrect readings compared to professional equipment. Devices measuring at the wrist are usually insufficient and upper arm cuffs should be prepared (which need to be of adequate size: Too small a cuff will result in an incorrectly higher value and vice versa).
Airborne_Again wrote:
Wow! My AMEs have never tested blood sugar but only sugar in my urine. You need to pretty far gone before anything shows up there.
Being done here standard if your BMI is over 30 I think. I’ve had it done ever since I came back to flying in 2009, twice it was not done as I did come later during the day.
Since that “grape” experience I own a self tester, which I use about 1ce a month to check if there is anything out of the extraordinary.
Mooney_Driver wrote:
If you know you will be tested for blood sugar, avoid grapes like the plague for about 24 hours before. They can turn you from a perfectly normal value to something which your AME will insist on testing for weeks on end just to be sure…
Wow! My AMEs have never tested blood sugar but only sugar in my urine. You need to pretty far gone before anything shows up there.
Peter wrote:
BP readings are strongly dependent on factors which AMEs don’t seem to bother with e.g. back supported? if back support not offered, sit very straight so torso is not working hard head upright, neck not bent slow deep breathing think of something like rabbits jumping around a field NOT talking don’t do a long drive to the AME but if unavoidable don’t see him right afterwards
Also some take your BP as the first thing once you walk in, which is not how it should be. You should have been sitting down for at least 5 mins.
During my “vaccations” I had an incident where due to over exertion I got a bit dizzy for a moment. As my MiL spends her days measuring her ever so up/down BP (and drives everyone crazy with it) she insisted to measure mine, which resulted in a 160/90 reading, quite alarming to me. 5 mins later, it was down to 133/85. Now back home, I am down to my usual 120/80 every time I take the measuring.
And another nice tidbit of information I got from a friendly doc: If you know you will be tested for blood sugar, avoid grapes like the plague for about 24 hours before. They can turn you from a perfectly normal value to something which your AME will insist on testing for weeks on end just to be sure… Despite my obvious overweight (even though that reduced by 8 kgs over the last month) I have never yet “qualified” for higher scrutiny, except for the one case when I had eaten grapes the night before: My morning bs was 6.2 instead of the usual 5.5 and caused a one month 3ple test per day and record keeping to get my medical back. I changed my AME after that experience.
A quick point to add if drinking hibiscus tea.
Short term before your medical, avoid teas which use liquorice root as a sweetener, as this increases your blood pressure.
I recently had 4 cups of mint and liquorice tea in an afternoon, and the effect was noticeable. It’s subjective as I don’t check my blood pressure, but would describe it as similar to background stress or anxiety.
