By Healthymagination | Posted October 1 2010
Guest blogger Alisa Bowman [AlisaBowman.com] is a freelance writer and editor who has collaborated on seven NY Times bestsellers, including The Skinny (Broadway, 2009). Her latest book, Project: Happily Ever After, will be published next year.
You’ve seen the ads for them on TV, in magazines and on the Internet, and you’ve probably seen them for sale next to the pharmacy checkout. But do home health-testing kits really work?
In the vast majority of cases, the answer to that question is: Yes.
In a recent study of 527 people with high blood pressure published in The Lancet, patients who monitored pressure at home were able to drop systolic pressure (the top number in your blood pressure reading) by 17.6 points, whereas patients who did not monitor pressure at home only dropped pressure by 12.2 points over a year’s time. Additional studies have yielded similar results for home-blood sugar monitoring for diabetes and peak flow meters for asthma.
Why does home testing work?
“Many of these diseases can be influenced by lifestyle changes, and numbers are one of the strongest motivators of change,” says Tim Hennessy, MD, an internist in Wilmington, DE and author of Recalled to Health (Basic Health Publications, 2010). Seeing a blood pressure or blood sugar reading once every few months at the doctor’s office might motivate you to change your eating and exercise habits for a short while. Seeing those numbers every day will motivate you to do it continuously, he says.
The numbers can also help you pinpoint less obvious lifestyle habits that might be affecting your health. For instance, through self-monitoring, you might find that your pressure always goes up at work—a sign that you need to keep work stress in check.
Not all home-testing kits are equally effective, though. Use these pointers:
* Leave the cholesterol screening to your physician. Too many variables affect cholesterol for home readings, making these tests untrustworthy sources of health information.
* Take home blood pressure machines with you to the doctor and have your doctor or nurse watch you test your pressure. This will ensure that you are taking your pressure accurately as well as ensure that the machine is properly calibrated.
* Check your blood sugar in the parking lot before a doctor’s appointment and compare the reading you get with the reading the doctor gets—again to ensure accuracy.
CONNECT THE DOTS
The National Institute of Health MedlinePlus offers advice on how to monitor your blood sugar, the American Academy of Family Physicians offers a guide to home blood pressure monitoring and the Mayo Clinic offers tips for getting the most out of home blood pressure monitoring.
PREVIOUS POST
