Blood pressure an indicator of heart strength?

[FlamingFirefox]

systolic blood pressure is the pressure on the arteries when the heart contracts and diastolic is the pressure when the heart relaxes. Can we use the systolic to measure heart strength to push blood out? A very low systolic can be an indicator of a compromised heart? Just something that came to me the other day. Do I make any sense? Thanks in advance.

 

[The Possum]

I'm not a cardiologist by any means. But that to me would be an indicator of cardiac strength. It is a muscle after all. I'm sure someone's smarter than I am will chime in here and correct me if I am wrong.

 

[E tank]

cardiac function is only one factor in blood pressure...as you'd expect the answer is "it depends..." folks with severely reduced left ventricular function can present normo to hypertensive while elite triathlon'ers walk around with SBP's of 95 or less.

Is there a relationship? Yes. Does it correlate? No.

 

[DesertMedic66]

Unfortunately it is not that simple. There are several factors that go into making a blood pressure and a change to any of those factors will have a change in the blood pressure. Here is one example: a patient in hypovolemic shock. There is a decreased blood pressure because there is a major decrease of the amount of blood being returned to the heart, preload. There is no real compromise to the heart itsel.