Cell Phone Call May Spur Blood Pressure Spike

Answering a call while getting your blood pressure taken could lead to an inaccurately higher reading, according to a new study.

Research presented at the annual meeting of the American Society of Hypertension shows that systolic blood pressure rises when a person receives phonic calls.

The study included 94 people with mild to moderate hypertension, with an average age of 53. The participants were asked about their cell phone habits (how many calls they made or took a day, if it was on while getting the blood pressure reading, how often they turned their phones off, etc.).

They also underwent two rounds of six blood pressure measurements; during one of the rounds, they were called three times by an "unknown" number (it was really the researchers calling them) while getting their blood pressure taken. They didn't receive calls in the other round of blood pressure measurements.

Researchers found that systolic blood pressure rose when the participants were called during the measurements, though the diastolic blood pressure wasn't all that affected. However, researchers noted that people who reported being heavy cell phone users (people who called or received more than 30 calls in one day) were less affected by the phone calls than people who used cell phones less.

Blood pressure isn't the only thing that could be affected by a ringing phone -- sleep could also take a hit. For more on that, click here.

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