New study confirms importance of systolic bloo...( New evidence from the National Heart...)

New study confirms importance of systolic blood pressure

New evidence from the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute's Framingham Heart Study finds that systolic blood pressure, far more than diastolic blood pressure, identifies patients with hypertension, determines their blood pressure stage, and indicates the need for treatment, but both measurements used together are best. The study is published in the September issue of Hypertension.

"The message from this study is that you cannot ignore systolic pressure," said Claude Lenfant, M.D., NHLBI Director. "For years, treatment strategies have focused on lowering a patient's diastolic pressure, because diastolic pressure accurately predicted heart disease and stroke risk in younger patients. But this practice excludes the elderly, who tend to have higher systolic pressures and lower diastolic pressures - and who have the least-controlled blood pressure of all patients."

Systolic pressure measures the force blood exerts on the artery walls when the heart beats, and diastolic pressure measures the force on the arteries between heartbeats. Hypertension is diagnosed when the systolic blood pressure is 140 mm Hg or higher or the diastolic blood pressure is 90 mm Hg or higher. Patients are classified into stages of hypertension depending on how high or low their blood pressure is.

There are 50 million adults in the United States with hypertension. Currently, only 68 percent of them are aware of their condition, 54 percent are being treated, and only 27 percent have it under control.

The Framingham researchers examined nearly 5,000 untreated men and women, average age 58, and determined each person's blood pressure stage using both systolic and diastolic pressure together as recommended in the Sixth Report of the Joint National Committee on Prevention, Detection, Evaluation, and Treatment of High Blood Pressure (JNC VI). NHLBI's National High Blood Pressure Education Program issued the JNC VI guidelines in 1997.

Researchers then compared these
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Contact: NHLBI Communications Office
301-496-4236
NIH/National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute
16-Sep-1999

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