Toss the cuff: A new patch to check blood pressure

Almost half of all people in the U.S. have high blood pressure. Only many don’t know it yet.

“Hypertension is a huge public health problem in the United States and worldwide,” said Dr. Maria Delgado, an expert in hypertension with the University of Miami Comprehensive Hypertension Center.

Delgado said the old-fashioned way of putting your arm into a blood pressure cup at the doctor’s office is not the best for accuracy.

When people are stressed, they often experience “White coat syndrome” or “White coat hypertension.” Patients will often tell her, “‘At home, my blood pressure is 120 over 70. It’s just when I come here, it goes very high.’”

That’s why she believes this patch is the answer. In the Biobeat Skin Patch, light bounces from a sensor to the heart. Measuring heart rate, blood oxygen and blood pressure without you even knowing.

“It goes through 24-hour measurements, and you don’t have any sensation that the blood pressure is being measured,” said Delgado.

This could be particularly good for measuring blood pressure at night.

A study out of Oxford found 15% of people aged 40 to 75 have undiagnosed high blood pressure. That only occurs at night.

“You’re not going to be measuring your blood pressure at 1:00 AM, 2:00 AM 3:00 AM, so this patch will help us understand what is happening to you while you’re sleeping,” Delgado said.

The Biobeat is already available for patients to use. Now, researchers at U.C. San Diego are working on an even smaller, wearable ultrasound patch that uses soundwaves to track blood pressure.