Thanks very much, Catharine for your thoughts. I'm fully with you on the questionable way of taking blood pressure as you have experienced it. I would like to caution you, though, on a general dismissal of the attempt to control BP "after a certain age". It is always a very individualised decision to make. As a Cochrane study pointed out several years ago, absolute blood pressure might be a poor indicator for the need to start an antihypertensive treatment. But one should always look at the individual to make a diagnosis, not that individual's BP values.