The number of people suffering from high blood pressure has recently leapt upwards, largely because "high" has been redefined to mean "anything above the average". To date, the main weapons against high blood pressure have been diet, exercise, being young, being dead and drugs - all of which have their drawbacks.
Clearly, it's time for engineers to get involved. Any engineer would look at the circulation as a closed circuit with limited compliance and a recirculating pump. The first thing they'd say is "pressure relief valve". Actually, if they were polite, the first thing they'd say is "good morning", but people go into engineering in order to avoid the social graces.
MaxCo has gone down the engineering route, and is proud to introduce its implantable blood pressure relief valve. The iBPRV is remarkably simple (which should not be construed as "cheap"), consisting as it does simply of teflon valve with a damped spring on it, which is sewn into the wall of any large blood vessel near the intestines. Transient overpressure is insufficient to open the valve (thanks to the damping), but sustained overpressure will cause the valve to open proportionally, venting blood into the exit tube which, in turn, feeds into the intestines. As a consequent result, excess blood is lost until the overpressure is eliminated. Nutrients in the blood (for instance, all that iron and protein) are recaptured by the intestine.
The deluxe version features an additional outlet tube, connected to a transparent latex balloon just under the skin. When blood is venting, a small amount of it flows into the balloon, creating a large red indicator circle which is visible through the skin, informing the patient that their iBPRV is performing its function.
Job done. Pass the salt, please.-- MaxwellBuchanan, Oct 12 2018 Flow coefficient https://en.wikipedi...ki/Flow_coefficient [Inyuki, Oct 12 2018] Or, you know, one of these https://goo.gl/images/HVEZzK(You’d have to eat it afterwards, of course, to completely fit this idea. Maybe if you sautéed it first?) [DrCurry, Oct 13 2018] Vegetarian_20Black_20Pudding yours aye, hippo's outsourced shameless self promoter [calum, Oct 17 2018] Blood Pressure During Exercise https://www.ncbi.nl....gov/pubmed/2632751 [bs0u0155, Oct 18 2018] Modest Resistance Training https://www.youtube...watch?v=T9Y4o_BqC0A [bs0u0155, Oct 18 2018] Are you suffering from irritable Trum syndrome? https://hopefulvolu...rritable-trump.html [spidermother, Oct 14 2020] Wait. This assumes that elevated blood pressure is due to overproduction of blood. Aren't there other reasons for higher blood pressure? Very politely, passes the salt over to another participant. :)-- Inyuki, Oct 12 2018 No, it assumes no such thing. It simply assumes that removing liquid from a closed system will lower the pressure.-- MaxwellBuchanan, Oct 12 2018 I suppose higher blood pressure might be a result of flow rate. If the blood is too thick, or the vessels too narrow due to vasoconstriction, the heart pumps stronger to compensate for the reduced flow rate. I would look into reducing the associated flow coefficient [link].
Of course, removing liquid from a closed system will affect the pressure. I guess, it would make the heart beat slower (due to slower fill up of its compartments), and make one light-headed (due to reduced flow through head), and the pressure difference larger (between the fluid incoming to heart, and outgoing), and also, higher pressure difference between incoming and outgoing blood from all the organs with reduced flow rate.-- Inyuki, Oct 12 2018 So we are back to bleeding the patient again, eh?-- DrBob, Oct 12 2018 Worked for 1200 years, [Doc].-- MaxwellBuchanan, Oct 12 2018 Well, it happened for a long time, I'll grant you.-- DrBob, Oct 12 2018 Blood pressure is a compounded effect of the volume of blood a heart pumps (cardiac output) and the end pressure of capillary resistance (oncotic pressure). Chemical changes in red blood cells that make each one pop slightly larger as they give up oxygen, so nanotech may allow a microvalve to migrate to every blood capillary lumen so blood pressure drops as lymphatic pressure allows. The idea of one large valve might reduce afterload and ease one major artery's resistance to cardiac output, but a better idea would be a third kidney.-- reensure, Oct 13 2018 I wonder, would this be of any help to provide oxygen and take away byproducts without blood circulation at all, like from the 4th spatial dimension, where every 3D object looks flat and accessible?-- Inyuki, Oct 13 2018 Could you not set it up more like a hot gas bypass on a refigerent system and vent high pressure from an out artery to and in artery you don't lose blood just pressure?-- dev45, Oct 13 2018 [dev], if you'd like to join MaxCo's Scientific Inadvisory Board, there's a place waiting for you.-- MaxwellBuchanan, Oct 13 2018 [max] Sounds better then the job I have.-- dev45, Oct 13 2018 Simple application of Bernoulli's principle implies that to reduce the pressure we need to increase the velocity. One path to achieving this would be the ejection of the patient from an aerial vehicle at great height. The effects may only be temporary, however.-- mitxela, Oct 13 2018 Depends if the parachute opens.
// "high" has been redefined to mean "anything above the average". //
So, 50% of the population... ?
// To date, the main weapons against high blood pressure have been diet, exercise, being young, being dead and drugs //
<Cardinal Ximinez>
"Our principal weapon is diet ... diet and exercise ... our two principle weapons are diet and exercise and being young ... our three principal weapons are diet, exercise , being young and being dead ... our FOUR principal weapons are diet, exercise , being young and being dead, and drugs ... oh forget it, I'll come in again."
</Cardinal Ximinez>
Will being put in a comfy chair and prodded with soft cushions tend to reduce blood pressure ?-- 8th of 7, Oct 13 2018 That depends on if the one doing the prodding is a drunken frat boy who will one day be judge...-- RayfordSteele, Oct 14 2018 [8 of 7] If it's young women priding male with pillows blood pressure tends to clime Vs drop-- dev45, Oct 14 2018 //"high" has been redefined to mean "anything above the average".// so my doc can't diagnose me as hypertensive unless he's taken the BP of everyone else (or at least a representative sample thereof) within the last news cycle?
I could probably get a bunch of people into that warning range just by saying that my BP is currently about 2.4 psi over 1.6 psi.-- lurch, Oct 14 2018 Why divert excess blood into the intestines? - surely the sensible thing to do would be to drain it off into a colostomy-bag-style pouch, for later conversion into delicious black pudding?-- hippo, Oct 16 2018 Blood pressure, funny old thing. Medicine is a little obsessed with it. Probably because it looks quite doctory and is a good way for the higher-ups to ensure someone occasionally looks in on the smelly patients.
Anyhow, this valve is all wrong. Resting blood pressure is quite low, as soon as you do anything like walk a bit, climb a step or deadlift half a ton, blood pressure raises really quite a lot. 350/250 has been seen in squats <link> and god knows what was going on inside Eddie Hall when his nose and retina started leaking <link>.-- bs0u0155, Oct 18 2018 Would not the indicator be a constant personal above average?
I think this would make the heart work harder because the increased pressure was trying to do something. Venting blood would make that something done even less. Blood thinners help the heart do the pressure more easily.
[dev45] The living body is field evolved, the downstream system is not necessarily the same as the upstream system unlike the piping in a fridge. Or am I wrong and refridgeration piping design has got that complex that the pressure specs change along the pipe flow?-- wjt, Oct 27 2018 Terpination?-- LoriZ, Nov 02 2018 Again, I believe it is wrong to lower the pressure unless the underlying reason is controlled. On second thoughts, an exception is if it is off the scale then only speed of action matters.-- wjt, Nov 03 2018 I installed a Trump blocking filter on my browser about a year ago. Done wonders for my blood pressure, sanity etc.-- not_morrison_rm, Nov 03 2018 Version 1.0 of this valve appeared briefly in the movie Dune from 1984, IIRC. Once activated, it effectively lowered the owner's blood pressure, completely. They were quite the hit.-- whatrock, Oct 14 2020 //Trump ... sanity///
<link>-- spidermother, Oct 14 2020 random, halfbakery