Primary Care Tips- Blood Pressure.

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Diagnosis of hypertension before the age of 40 years increased the rate of cardiovascular disease ( stroke and heart failure) by as much as 3.5 times compared to those who have normal blood pressure, a study, the CARDIA trial shows. In a similar Korean study this increase is as much as 85 %. Two seperate studies a world apart with similar findings give those of us in primary care reason for pause. Blood pressure in young adults age 18-30 years need to be addressed, treated and controlled. A reasonable primary prevention strategy for cardiovascular disease (CVD) will be to use the new but somewhat controversial American College of Cardiology (ACC)/American Heart Association (AHA) 2017 guideline for diagnosis of stage 1 hypertension to identify persons with hypertension in this age group. These group of patients stand to benefit from timely identification, intervention and treatment of hypertension. The American College of Cardiology (ACC)/American Heart Association (AHA) 2017 hypertension classification update reduced the threshold for hypertension from 140/90 mmHg to 130/80 mmHg, with stage 1 hypertension defined as a systolic BP (SBP) of 130 to 139 mmHg or a diastolic BP (DBP) of 80 to 89 mmHg.

Reference: https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/article-abstract/2712542

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