Tackling High Blood Pressure Important for Young and Old Alike

Tackling High Blood Pressure Important for Young and Old Alike

Tackling High Blood Pressure Important for Young and Old Alike

Oct. 15, 2001 -- We are doing a bad job of controlling high blood pressure in the U.S. -- particularly in people over 65, who stand to benefit most from aggressive treatment, according to a new study.

Plenty of research has shown that bringing blood pressure down decreases the chance of having a stroke or heart attack, but previous studies have also shown that only about a third of people with high blood pressure have the condition under control.

"It is estimated that 18.5 million Americans age 65 years or older have high blood pressure, of which 15 million are inadequately diagnosed or treated," senior researcher of the study Marco Pahor, MD, says in a news release. He is professor of geriatrics at Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, N.C.

There are several reasons why doctors are not aggressively treating high blood pressure in their older patients -- even those patients with additional heart disease and stroke risk factors such as high cholesterol or diabetes.

• People over 65 are more likely to experience interactions between blood pressure medication and other drugs they're already taking.
• Some doctors believe that as people age, there is little that can be done to slow the blood vessel disease that can lead to a heart attack or stroke.
• Some doctors are concerned that lowering blood pressure might do more harm than good (for example, by causing dizziness that can lead to potentially dangerous falls).

But Pahor and colleagues questioned this reasoning and looked at more than 4,400 adults over age 60 with "systolic hypertension." In this very common condition among the elderly, the top number (systolic blood pressure) is at least 160, but the bottom number (diastolic blood pressure) is normal.

The study is published in the Oct. 16 issue of Circulation: Journal of the American Heart Association.

The researchers used a tool developed by the American Heart Association that calculated each person's risk of developing a heart attack, stroke, or heart failure -- all of which can be caused by uncontrolled blood pressure.

The researchers found that those who had the highest risk of future problems -- people with high blood pressure plus other risk factors such as high cholesterol, diabetes, and smoking -- stood to benefit most from aggressive blood pressure treatment.