Docs get so hung up on matching the numbers on patients’ charts to mainstream guidelines that they often forget these things are written on paper — not set in stone.

But in addition to being meaningless, many of those targets are actually dangerous — and quite possibly deadly.

Case in point: blood pressure.

The guidelines are often meaningless to healthy people, and a new study shows how they could be dangerous and even deadly for stroke victims — because meeting those targets could actually boost the odds of another stroke.

Researchers reviewing data on more than 20,000 stroke patients found that those who had systolic readings — that’s the top number — of below 120 had a higher risk of second stroke than people who were between 130 and 140.

To put that into perspective, below 120 is right on target — at least as far as the mainstream is concerned, and there’s even talk of lowering that target to 115. Meanwhile, 130-140 is considered “prehypertension” — and many docs now prescribe BP meds for people in this range.

What’s more, patients who had the technically perfect systolic reading of under 120 had only an ever-so-slight decrease in the risk of another stroke when compared to patients with readings between 140 and 150.

That’s flat-out hypertension, at least if you’re following guidelines. And if that’s not the surest sign we’ve gone overboard with all this worry over blood pressure, I don’t know what is.

The researchers behind the new study aren’t quite ready to abandon those guidelines — they suggest waiting six months after a stroke to lower BP levels.

But why bother, especially in borderline cases? In addition to being harmful to stroke victims, studies have shown there’s not much benefit for healthy people.

One study earlier this year found the entire prehypertension category — systolic readings between 120 and 140 — to be essentially meaningless. Patients under the age of 50 didn’t face any increased heart risk until their systolic numbers topped 200 — while the over-50 crowd didn’t see increased risk until they reached 140.

Read more about that here.

So forget 120 and don’t even think about 115 — those numbers may have succeeded in getting more people onto BP meds, but they haven’t succeeded in saving lives.

Sodium has been a necessary part of the diet since time began — but based on how little the mainstream knows about it, you’d think it was discovered just last week.

Governments, health organizations and doctors are all pushing the completely unproven notion that a low-salt diet will prevent heart disease and improve health in people who already have the condition — but the latest research shows they’re wrong.

Dead wrong.

While it’s true that too much salt can hurt you, odds are you’re not getting even close to “too much.” Too little salt, on the other hand, is every bit as dangerous — and if you follow mainstream guidelines, you’re already smack in the danger zone.

A new look at data on some 28,000 patients with either heart disease or a high risk of developing heart disease or diabetes found that people who consumed 4,000 mg per day actually had the lowest risk of heart disease.

Since most Americans get about 3,400 mg a day, that’s actually well above the average intake — and way above the guidelines, which call for a maximum of 2,300 mg of sodium a day for most people, and 1,500 mg a day for many others.

Stick to the lower intake, and you might want to make sure your affairs are in order: Those who only got between 2,000 mg and 3,000 mg a day actually had an 8.6-percent increase in the risk of dying from a heart-related condition, and a 5-percent boost in the risk of hospitalization for congestive heart failure than those who took in 4,000 mg a day.

Of course, that doesn’t mean you should ignore your salt intake — because the same study in the American Journal of Hypertension found that extremely high levels of salt are even worse.

How extreme? People who got between 7,000 mg and 8,000 mg of sodium a day had a 9.7-percent boost in the risk of dying of a heart-related event, and a 7-percent increase in the risk of a heart attack.

But here’s the thing: It’s almost impossible to get that much sodium from a diet of fresh foods, even if you add a dash of salt to everything.

Only packaged foods — and lots of ‘em — can take you to that level. And in that case, is it really the salt — or is it all the other junk used to make those meals?

My money’s on the latter.

Salt isn’t the only place the mainstream has gotten it backwards. Keep reading for the latest news on blood pressure.

Next time your doctor says “cut back on the salt, or else” ask him one question.

Or else what?

He’ll tell you how all that salt is responsible for the high blood pressure that leads to heart disease. But if you’ve tried to cut back on salt, then you already know how well it works — not at all.

It’s not just you.

A low-salt diet is actually scientifically proven to have little to no impact on your BP levels, and a new study confirms it: Researchers in Europe say cutting back on sodium trims just 1 percent off a healthy person’s BP levels, and 3.5 percent off those of someone battling hypertension.

And in exchange for those meaningless dips in blood pressure, patients who stuck to the low-salt lifestyle saw a 7 percent surge in deadly triglycerides and a 2.5 percent overall boost in cholesterol levels.

In other words, if your BP spikes a little and your doc tells you to stick to a low-salt diet to avoid hypertension meds, he’ll almost certainly end up giving you those meds anyway — and a statin to boot.

Consider that a bonus.

If this was the first study of its kind, it would be easy to be a little skeptical — and there’s absolutely nothing wrong with being skeptical. But it’s not — and it’s not the second or third study either.

In fact, it’s the fourth study just this year to find no benefit to a low-salt diet — not to mention the dozens of other studies that have reached the same conclusion over the years.

If you’re concerned about blood pressure, forget about salt. Cut back on sugar instead — because the research on this has been remarkably consistent: People who consume the most sugar have the highest blood pressure levels.

That’s why one of the most immediate benefits of a low-carb diet is a swift reduction in blood pressure.

Once you get the sugar out, don’t focus on salt so much as your salt-to-potassium ratio. Thanks to processed foods, most people get more salt than potassium. In reality, you should get about three times as much potassium as salt.

Make those two changes, and you can hit the saltshaker to your heart’s content — and never have to worry about your BP levels again.

Culture is a funny thing: In some places, you’re considered a little weird if you meditate… in others, you’re weird if you don’t.

Most people here in the West never even consider it at all — but maybe you should, because a growing body of evidence finds that this practice of the mind can have a major impact on the body, including a serious boost in heart health.

In fact, it works so well that researchers from Harvard University and Justuc Liebig University say it’s time for mainstream docs to start working meditation into their clinical practices as a treatment for some of our most common — and overmedicated — conditions, especially hypertension.

While no one has been able to pinpoint how meditation can accomplish so much with so little, the study in Perspectives on Psychological Science breaks the effects down into four key components: attention regulation, body awareness, emotion regulation, and sense of self.

Sounds to me like it’s as mysterious as ever, at least to Western science. In any case, I’m more interested in what it does rather than how it does it — because it’s downright astonishing.

In one recent study on cardiovascular health, the researchers said meditators got so many benefits that it was as if they had been given some powerful new drug.

In that one, the patients who practiced a popular form of meditation were 50 percent less likely to suffer from heart attack, stroke or even death from any cause during that study period than non-meditators.

Powerful new drug? Big Pharma can only wish it had a med this safe and effective!

Another recent study found that meditation can improve concentration and focus, while other studies have found that the practice can slash levels of stress, anxiety, depression and anger while improving memory and cognition and boosting immune system function.

Learning meditation can get pricey — there are expensive courses and fancy retreats you can take. But it doesn’t have to cost you an arm and a leg to get a new look inside your mind.

In fact, it can even be free. Visit your local library and check out a few books on the subject — you’ll learn everything you need to know to get started.