As heart disease continues to be one of the leading causes of death in the United States, practitioners and patients alike are looking for ways to cut risk factors and identify new clues to assist with early detection. New research published in the March issue of The American Journal of Medicine suggests that there is an association between a difference in interarm systolic blood pressure and a significant increased risk for future cardiovascular events, leading researchers to recommend expanded clinical use of interarm blood pressure measurement.

While blood pressure is a widely used medical metric, most measurements are taken only using one arm. Measuring interarm blood pressure involves taking two readings, one for each arm. Increased interarm systolic blood pressure differences are defined as 10 mmHg or greater, and while a link between interarm blood pressure and cardiovascular risk was suspected, little data existed to support the hypothesis until now.